SIMON Rogan’s L’Enclume in Cartmel, Cumbria has been voted the UK’s best restaurant in the carefully curated annual Harden’s Top 100 Best UK Restaurants diners’ poll.
The much-loved Lake District dining destination has featured in the Harden’s Top 100 every year since the list first launched in 2011, but this is the first time it has reached the top spot. Feedback from diners hailed it as “a completely faultless experience” marshalling the finest local produce – much of it from Simon’s ‘Our Farm’ on the surrounding hillsides – to provide “a symphony of beautifully orchestrated food”.
Last year’s winner, Andrew Fairlie Gleneagles Hotel, remains in the top three and was once again applauded unanimously in diners’ reports for its “exceptional cuisine”.
The 33rd edition of the Harden’s guide, published this week (ISBN: 978-1916076174, price £20: also available as apps for Apple or Android), is one of only two surviving established UK restaurant guides made available in print, and the only one based on feedback from normal diners rather than a group of professional inspectors. A total of 30,000 reports are submitted from a survey of 2,500 diners. Restaurants at all price levels are included: from street food vendors to the country’s most ambitious dining rooms, with 2,800 restaurants listed in total.
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Strikingly, the number of Top 100 restaurants based in London has fallen to an all-time low. Usually expected to make up between 45-50% of the final rankings, this year only 36 of the best restaurants are listed there with Edinburgh (tied with Cambridge) named as the city boasting the most Top 100 restaurants outside of London.
The Scottish capital’s Restaurant Martin Wishart (8) climbs the list from last year’s 14 to a Top 10 position, The Kitchen is ranked at 13 and Scott and Laura Smith’s Fhior is a newcomer to this year’s list at number 64. Outside of Edinburgh, a further three Scottish establishments (including Andrew Fairlie) make it into the elite ranking. Cail Bruich, Glasgow jumps from 50 to 16 hailed “a star of Glasgow’s culinary scene” with “enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff”, while The Three Chimneys, Dunvegan (80) is credited for having “some of the freshest and best seafood in the UK”.
Peter Harden, co-founder of Harden’s, commented: “London’s grip on the Top 100 list is the weakest that we have ever recorded (the lowest previous figure was 41 in the 2020 guide). Whilst 12 months is too little data for firm pronouncements, this swing to the shires may reflect the increasing excellence of dining out across the UK. As one of our most consistently performing restaurants in the guide, it is fantastic to see last year’s winner Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles still in the top three and even more of Scotland’s culinary stars finding their way into the Top 100 and Top 500, coming together to place the city of Edinburgh in particular at the forefront of the UK’s dining scene.”
