2 pubs in Good Food Guide Top 50 Restaurants

11-Sep-2019 - Last updated on 11-Sep-2019 at 15:26 GMT

On the up: the number of pubs in this year's Top 50 Restaurants has doubled from one to two

Two pubs have been featured in the latest edition of The Good Food Guide’s Top 50 Restaurants in the UK – up from one last year.

In the Top 50 Restaurants 2020, the Black Swan at Oldstead, North Yorkshire, was a new entry at number 34, with a cooking score of seven out of 10.

The current number one Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropub, the Sportsman in Seasalter, Kent, came in at number 37, also with a cooking score of seven – up from number 42 in last year’s edition of the guide.

Slavishly favourable

The guide also has a variety of awards and Restaurant of the Year was won by the Mash Inn, Radnage in Buckinghamshire.

The guide said: “This grown-up pub dishes up a daily four-course menu or 10-course taster where ‘pretty much everything is exposed to naked flames or burning charcoal’, resulting in dishes that feel fresh but not slavishly fashionable.

“Often using ingredients from the kitchen garden, highlights from the menu include darkly blistered chapa flatbread with clean, aerated Romanesco and green apple soup, simple just-pulled radishes with hay mayo and a memorable côte du boeuf, with silky, umami-rich sesame miso sauce.”

Flexible eating

The Good Food Guide editor Elizabeth Carter outlined how seven decades of the publication had given the directory a unique insight into eating out in Britain.

She added: “The more we conduct ourselves online, the more we look for care, provenance and thoughtfulness – especially when it comes to food.

“With diners increasingly looking for flexible eating options and value for money, there has been a surge in inexpensive cafés and restaurants that rank quality of ingredients above all else.

“Small, owner-run dining rooms across the country provide clear examples of how they can and do work in direct opposition to the pizza-burger overload on the British high street.”