9 of the best new restaurant openings across the British isles
If there’s one thing better than a road trip, it’s a road trip with a great restaurant at the end of it. Some fantastic new pubs, cafés and restaurants are opening across the British Isles this summer and we plan to work many of them into our travel plans. From Brighton to Barnt Green, St Mellion to Margate, here’s our pick of the UK’s best new dining spots.
The Spence
Edinburgh
The Gleneagles Hotel, icon of Scottish hospitality, opens its Edinburgh outpost, Gleneagles Townhouse to the public on 27 June. Collaborating with Gleneagles on The Spence, the hotel’s all-day restaurant, are Layo and Zoë Paskin, the brother-and-sister duo behind The Palomar, Barbary and Evelyn’s Table. The food sounds positively decadent; think whole roasted turbot with fennel and chilli, Glenturret ‘Scotch baba’ for two and weekend brunches of West Coast crab omelette. Luxurious interiors and an ornate glass-domed ceiling set the scene.
The Spence, Gleneagles Townhouse, 39 St Andrew Square, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH2 2AD
gleneaglestownhouse.com
Boath House
Scottish Highlands
It’s not yet a year since they opened Sessions Arts Club, but already the trio behind the chic Clerkenwell restaurant – artist Jonny Gent, chef Florence Knight and architect Russell Potter – has a second project in the works. Boath House, near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands, is ‘sanctuary for creatives’ with nine bedrooms, cabins, art residencies, a dining room and garden café. Hurry, hurry if you’re after a weekend booking; they’re disappearing fast. Opens August.
Boath House, Auldearn, Nairn, Scotland, IV12 5TE
boath-house.com
Tutto
Brighton
A new Italian in Brighton from the team behind local favourites The Coal Shed, The Salt Room and Burnt Orange. Tutto’s head chef Mirella Paul brings years of experience to the kitchen from her time as head chef at Cafe Murano and Padella and from her childhood growing up in a family of restaurateurs in her native Sardinia. Her homemade fregola’s the sure-fire signature. The location is excellent, in a 1930s bank building by the Royal Pavilion and Brighton Dome.
Tutto, 20-22 Marlborough Place, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 1UB
tutto-restaurant.co.uk
Quince
Kent
Quince’s co-chefs and owners Rafael Lopez and Ben Hughes spent five years working together at Canterbury farm-to-table institution The Goods Shed (Lopez was head chef there for twenty years). Quince, now open in Westgate-on-Sea just west of Margate, sees them sourcing from the farms, day boats and vineyards they know well, for such dishes as wild bass with fennel gratin and anchoïade; herb, beetroot and apple salad with crisp duck egg; and raw cream, strawberry, elderflower and lemon balm.
Quince, 39 Station Road, Westgate-on-Sea, Kent, CT8 8QY
quincewestgate.co.uk
Emilia
Devon
For their Italian-inspired Osteria Emilia, Clare Lattin and Tom Hill of Duck Soup in Soho and Little Duck Picklery in Dalston have headed south-west to the pretty Devon town of Ashburton. ‘A tiny kitchen, one large table’ succinctly sums up the approach. Expect homemade charcuterie, natural wines, enviable interiors and genuine, open-hearted hospitality when it opens on 30 June.
Emilia, 2 East Street, Ashburton, Devon, TQ13 7AA
emiliaashburton.co.uk
Black and Green
Birmingham
Midlands-based About Dining group, best known for experiential chefs’ table restaurant 8 (“a procession of dreamy dishes with a side order of sinister” wrote a wowed if bewildered Marina O’Loughlin) has a new 16-seat neighbourhood restaurant in Barnt Green, just outside Birmingham Worcestershire. 8’s chef Andrew Sheridan, a Great British Menu finalist, leads the kitchen serving a weekly-changing menu at £55 for five courses. Early dishes include chocolate and cherry pie, beef and root tartare, jumbo plaice with buttermilk sauce.
Black and Green, 49 Hewell Road, Barnt Green, Birmingham, B45 8NL
aboutblackandgreen.co.uk
The White Hart Inn
Essex
You can’t go to Mersea Island without trying the oysters! At the White Hart Inn, opened this month in West Mersea, the locally cultivated shellfish come smoked, baked à la ‘Rockefeller’, with Bloody Mary, or au naturel with a dash of Tabasco® or a squeeze of lemon. The new pub with rooms is from the same stables as The Sun Inn at Dedham and is just the sort of place you’d hope to find on a weekend trip to this quaint little tidal island off the coast of Essex. On the menu: skate with Café de Paris sauce, moules frites, Sunday roasts, seafood platters, and a pork belly sando with kimchi mayo.
The White Hart Inn, 1 High Street, West Mersea, Essex, C05 8QD
whitehartinnmersea.co.uk
The Granary at Crocadon Farm
Devon
In pursuit of the finest ingredients imaginable, Roux Scholar and former L’Enclume chef Dan Cox left London for life on the land in Cornwall. This summer sees him open The Granary, a licensed café on his 120-acre Crocadon Farm near Saltash, in partnership with livestock farmer Tim Williams and grower and cook Claire Hannington-Williams. The café will serve regeneratively grown produce from the farm and wines from Vine Trail. A restaurant is to follow next summer.
The Granary, Crocadon Farm, St Mellion, Saltash, Devon, PL12 6RL
crocadon.farm
