logo
Map reveals the top 10 best restaurants and casual dining spots in the UK for 2025

Map reveals the top 10 best restaurants and casual dining spots in the UK for 2025

Scottish Sun10 hours ago
Use the interactive map below to check out the runner's up
DINNER WINNER Map reveals the top 10 best restaurants and casual dining spots in the UK for 2025
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Britain is home to some of the best restaurants in the world and experts have narrowed down the UK dining scene into a ranking of the top venues.
From fine restaurants to casual dining, the Muddy Stilettos editorial team has pitched, deliberated, and arm wrestled to bring you its National Winners.
Sign up for Scottish Sun
newsletter
Sign up
4
Caldesi in Campagna - an Italian restaurant in Bray, Berkshire - scooped up the number one spot
Credit: instagram/@caldesiincampagna
4
The restaurant specialises in Tuscan inspired cuisine
Credit: instagram/@caldesiincampagna
Best Restaurants
Winner - Caldesi in Campagna
Caldesi in Campagna - an Italian restaurant in Bray, Berkshire - scooped up the number one spot from the Muddy Stilettos.
The restaurant specialises in Tuscan inspired cuisine and is part of a small chain owned by chef Giancarlo Caldesi, who owns another restaurant of the same name in Marylebone.
He also has cookery schools in London and Berkshire.
Runner up - Alfredo's
Just missing out on the top spot were finalists Alfredo's in Somerset, a beautiful restaurant in the heart of Somerton, serving a taste of Italy made from the finest local ingredients.
Runner up - Linden Stores
Also a runner up were Linden Stores, an intimate, relaxed wine bar and restaurant in Knutsford, Cheshire, that serves seasonal British food and exciting wines.
Recent reviews say it's an "outstanding restaurant" and the chef's menu offers an "interesting wine pairing".
Runner up - The Greyhound
The Greyhound in Buckinghamshire, which offers guests an enjoyable dining and drinking experience in a beautifully designed Grade II listed building, was also a close contender.
It also featured in OpenTable's Top 100 Outdoor Dining spots this year.
Runner up - The Tasting Club
Having first opened its doors in 2022, The Tasting Club in Derbyshire gives food lovers a memorable journey through ten wow-factor courses, with a welcoming atmosphere.
It has a solid five-star rating on Google reviews, with the food being called "absolutely amazing" and the experience being "so much fun".
Best Casual Dining
Winner - Native Burger
Native Burger, a Cornwall family run business headed by founder Luke and his wife Georgie, scooped up the number one spot for casual dining.
Luke has buckets of experience after spending lots of years working alongside some of the county's best chefs.
The restaurant partners with local farmers, bakers, and artisans who to offer handpicked cuts from Cornwall's best butchers to craft spirits from nearby distilleries.
"Had the workout burger with tequila slammer fries and the house lager. 10/10 would recommend the food.
"Additionally, our server, Charley, was outstanding and patient, especially with my daughter's picky eating habits.
"This was a great experience and would recommend anyone visiting the area," wrote one reviewer on TripAdvisor.
4
Native Burger- a Cornwall family run business scooped up the number one spot for causal dining
Credit: instagram/@native.burger.bodmin
4
The restaurant partners with local farmers to offer handpicked cuts from Cornwall's best butchers
Credit: instagram/@native.burger.bodmin
Pub chain collapses into administration as SIX sites shut their doors for good and 159 job losses
Runner Up - Alder Vineyard Kitchen + Bar
Just missing out on the top spot were runners-up Alder Vineyard Kitchen + Bar in Devon, set in a stunning vineyard setting.
They offer delicious local cheese & charcuterie platters, fresh open sandwiches and seasonal plates.
And a range of treats from their signature stacked Devon breakfasts to eggs Benedict and smashed avocado topped English muffins.
They also serve warming cups of Tamar Koffi and delicious homemade Devon cakes and sweet treats.
And they were awarded the '2024 Gold winner for 'Best café + tearoom of the year' from the Devon Tourism Awards.
The Muddy Stilettos 10 best restaurants and casual dining spots in the UK for 2025
Best restaurant Winner
Caldesi in Campagna, Bray, Berkshire
Runner's up
Alfredo's in Somerset,
Linden Stores in Cheshire,
The Greyhound in Buckinghamshire
The Tasting Club in Derbyshire
Best casual dining winner
Native Burger, Bodmin, Cornwall
Runner's up
Alder Vineyard Kitchen + BAr, Lewdown, Devon
Aurora Kusina, Shepton Mallet, Somerset
Paradiso Burger, Soho, London
Rind, Settle, Yorkshire
Runner Up - Aurora Kusina
Aurora Kusina in Somerset offers a modern twist on Filipino comfort food and were also finalists.
Owned by husband and wife, Ross & Amber, the restaurant showcases a range of dishes inspired by Amber's childhood, cooked by her mother Aurora who was from the Philippines.
They regularly travel to her heartland to discover new and innovative flavours from different regions.
One reviewer said: "My first time visiting this evening and there is nothing I can say except WOW!!
"The food was beyond amazing, never be afraid to try something new, especially this place, you will not be disappointed. Can't rate highly enough, will most definitely be back."
Runner Up - Paradiso Burger
Paradiso Burger in Londonis your go-to spot in the heart of London's bustling Soho district.
Nestled in Kingly Court just off Carnaby Street, this vibrant venue offers a perfect blend of mouthwatering burgers, tantalising small plates, and expertly crafted cocktails.
Every weekend, they serve up 90 minutes of unlimited drinks alongside your choice of burgers or small plates.
From mimosas and prosecco to their signature cocktails, their Bottomless Brunch is made for lazy afternoons, celebrations, and spontaneous catch-ups.
Runner Up - Rind
Lastly, hidden away behind a renowned cheesemonger's shop in the picturesque Yorkshire Dales is a culinary gem known as Rind.
Tucked away in the charming village of Austwick, the pizzeria is a delightful find for both locals and travellers alike.
What sets this establishment apart is its ingenious use of locally sourced British cheeses, adding a delicious twist to every slice.
As customers enjoy their Neapolitan-style pizzas, they are treated to breath-taking views of the rolling Dales countryside, enhancing their dining experience.
One reviewer said: "We went here with friends for last night of holiday , with one kid , one baby and a dog.
"The pizzas were delicious, beers great and fantastic views ! Highly recommend and would go again."
More Food News
You can find the ultimate guide to cheap kids' meal this summer and chains where kids eat free here.
And Tesco has just released a new bizarre cake-flavoured sandwich that's got shoppers talking.
Meanwhile, Cadbury is launching a new Christmas advent calendar in weeks - and it's based on an iconic breakfast spread.
The chocolatier is set to unveil the new Dairy Milk calendar at major retailers next month.
Plus, a fast food restaurant has become the first in the UK to offer a dedicated quiet business area for remote workers.
The branch has sectioned off part of its restaurant for laptop users to have it as a working space.
Finally, an Italian restaurant chain is set to close six of its locations as part of a deal to save the brand.
Gusto will shut half a dozen locations that it says have become "economically unviable".
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Forget to pack one thing and your holiday could be 'ruined', warns expert
Forget to pack one thing and your holiday could be 'ruined', warns expert

Daily Mirror

time7 minutes ago

  • Daily Mirror

Forget to pack one thing and your holiday could be 'ruined', warns expert

A footwear expert is warning British travellers to Europe and further aboard to pack with dress codes in mind or risk being turned away from restaurants and bars While casual dining is common in the UK, dress code standards can be stricter in popular EU cities. For that reason, holidaymakers can find themselves turned away from bars and restaurants for failing to dress appropriately. ‌ The footwear expert at A Fine Pair of Shoes, Julian Nelson, is warning travellers to pack appropriately to avoid disappointment. According to him, everything starts with packing the right footwear options. ‌ Even if you have packed your airport-appropriate trainers or comfortable slides, Julian says you need a 'smart-casual' option on hand when travelling to certain cities. It comes after an Airbnb host rejected a duo's booking after learning where in the UK they're from. ‌ "Restaurants and rooftop bars in places like Barcelona, Dubai, or even the Greek Islands often have strict dress codes, and they're not letting men in wearing gym shoes or beach sandals," he says. ‌ In places like Dubai and Turkey, bars and restaurants are notorious for requiring 'closed-toe shoes' for men. In one TripAdvisor thread about wearing open-toe shoes around Dubai, a commenter wrote: 'Generally it's fine, but upmarket places like [Jumeirah Burj Al Arab] will have a dress code so it's best to check in advance.' The commenter suggested calling or emailing ahead to clarify the ' Smart Casual ' dress code and noted that it only seemed to apply to me. 'Ladies should be fine in nice sandals…not flip flips'. ‌ Another commenter speaking on Dubai's dress codes clarified that while it is fine to dress more casually, most residents tend to dress up. 'You will find that many Dubaians tend to dress up even for going to the mall. In fact, there are some sections at Dubai Mall that resemble a catwalk more than shopping mall hallways. 'Nonetheless, you will find people dressed in all sorts of styles, casual, middle of the road, etc.' Julian warns that cruise ships also enforce dress codes that sometimes catch travellers off guard. 'Cruise lines often have dress policies buried in their websites. Many specify that trainers aren't allowed in the evenings, even just walking around the ship or dining in restaurants." P&O, Royal Caribbean, and MSC Cruises all have 'smart evening' rules, which typically exclude sandals and trainers for men. P&O Cruises specifies that in the evening guests should opt for their 'favourite 'going out' shirt, paired with smart shoes'. Julian says a simple loafer or smart slip-on is lightweight and easy to pack, but can 'save your evening'. 'If you're planning on going for a nice meal to end the holiday, or want to try out some cocktail bars in your nearest city, you don't want to be turned away.' He recommends travellers pack using a 'three-shoe rule': one pair for walking and daytime exploring; one smart option for the evenings; and one lightweight pair like slides for the pool or beach.

Rihanna shows off baby bump as she is spotted out in LA wearing £2.1k marshmallow-inspired designer dress
Rihanna shows off baby bump as she is spotted out in LA wearing £2.1k marshmallow-inspired designer dress

Scottish Sun

timean hour ago

  • Scottish Sun

Rihanna shows off baby bump as she is spotted out in LA wearing £2.1k marshmallow-inspired designer dress

Rihanna is no stranger to confectionery-themed fashion RI'S A SWEETIE Rihanna shows off baby bump as she is spotted out in LA wearing £2.1k marshmallow-inspired designer dress Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) PREGNANT Rihanna shows off her baby Flump — sorry, bump — in a bonkers outfit the colour of the marshmallow treat. The singer, 37, was seen out and about in Los Angeles in a pink and orange dress. Sign up for the Entertainment newsletter Sign up 4 Pregnant Rihanna shows off her baby bump in this colourful outfit Credit: 4 The star was seen out and about in Los Angeles in a pink and orange dress Credit: And the Barbadian star's vintage 2001 Issey Miyake frock cost a lot more than the sweets — at just over £2,100. Rihanna, expecting her third baby in weeks, is no stranger to confectionery-themed fashion, wearing a Haribo Heart Throbs-style red dress in 2016. The pregnant star also showed off her huge bare baby bump while going out for dinner in LA at her favorite eatery. The business mogul, who announced her pregnancy earlier this year, looked ready to pop. Stepping out to head for dinner at her favorite Italian restaurant, Giorgio Baldi, Rihanna put her bump on display. Giorgio Baldi is a "luxurious family-run Italian spot near the ocean" which serves seafood and pasta. While heading out for food at the spot, Rihanna looked sensational in a navy suit, sheer mesh bra and polka dot tie. The mother-of-two wore her navy blazer open at the front, with her bump showing. She wore her hair slicked back, and kept her makeup natural and soft, yet glamorous. Pregnant Rihanna's third baby's gender revealed as partner A$AP Rocky slips and leaks news on Smurfs red carpet 4 Rihanna looks like one of these Flump sweets Credit: Shutterstock

Rattigan's films are as important as his plays
Rattigan's films are as important as his plays

Spectator

time2 hours ago

  • Spectator

Rattigan's films are as important as his plays

A campaign is under way to rename the West End's Duchess Theatre after the playwright Terence Rattigan. Supported as it is by the likes of Judi Dench and Rattigan Society president David Suchet, there's evidently a desire to right a historical wrong. Author of classics such as The Browning Version, The Winslow Boy and Separate Tables, Rattigan was known for his poise, melancholy and restraint, all of which put him at odds with the coterie of upstart writers of the 1950s – still amusingly known as the Angry Young Men. It's an oft-repeated chapter of theatre history that arch-kitchen-sinkers such as John Osborne made the environment virtually impossible for Rattigan to work in. Rattigan joked about it at the 1956 opening of Look Back in Anger. It was as if Osborne were saying, 'Look, Ma, I'm not Terence Rattigan!' he quipped. However, the Rattigan-bashing was always an empty indulgence. Osborne himself admitted as much on these very pages in 1993, writing: 'I have been intrigued by the success of the current revival of Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea. Rattigan was under the general frown when I first joined the Royal Court Theatre in 1956, and both George Devine and Tony Richardson were appalled when I confessed to being moved by the play.' Perhaps a Rattigan Theatre would indeed lay some of the ghosts to rest. But on first hearing news of the campaign, another thought occurred: Rattigan deserves a cinema as well. Film was arguably much kinder to him than theatre ever was in the low ebbs of his career. It supplied him with constant work, saw some of his best adaptations, and allowed his writing to weather the storm. Without his breakout play French Without Tears (1936), British cinema wouldn't have acquired one of its classic rogues, Rex Harrison, whose name it thrust into the spotlight. But French Without Tears was chiefly important because its adaptation in 1940 was Rattigan's first collaboration with director Anthony Asquith – and the first success of his screen career. Few could match Asquith's ability to adapt stage classics for film. The son of liberal prime minister Herbert, Asquith junior had directed an Oscar-nominated Pygmalion (1938), with Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller, as well as the most celebrated version of The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), with Edith Evans as the definitive Lady Bracknell. Like so many British artists, Rattigan and Asquith were drafted into propaganda duties during the war. And it resulted in their first truly great work, The Way to the Stars (1945). The film had a Who's Who cast – Michael Redgrave, John Mills and Trevor Howard, all of whom would return to work with Asquith and Rattigan – and in its quieter moments, observing the grin-and-bear-it times of a British bomber base, hinted at their true creative potential. Postwar, Asquith returned to Rattigan's stage work with an adaptation of The Winslow Boy in 1948. It perfectly captured the it's-just-not-cricket mentality of the original play with its story of a boy unjustly expelled from naval college. Rattigan would take up these themes again (to lesser effect) in The Final Test (1953), but The Winslow Boy had the advantage of Robert Donat in the lead role at the height of his powers. Asquith's take on The Browning Version was another great example of his refusal to follow the growing spectacle – albeit much of it magnificent – of contemporaries such as David Lean and Michael Powell. Refraining from visual tricks or even much of a musical score, Asquith allows Rattigan's poise and melancholy to speak for itself. It may be one of the most quietly devastating English films ever made. And as the retiring classics teacher who may or may not be missed by his pupils, Michael Redgrave gives one of his most heart-wrenching performances as Crocker-Harris. Rattigan was not tied to Asquith, and pursued multiple projects outside of his preoccupation with upper-middle-class England. He created the original screenplay for Brighton Rock (1948), for example, Graham Greene's story of wide-boy knife gangs directed by John Boulting. It was reworked before reaching the screen but Greene crucially retained Rattigan's vision of the work as a thriller rather than an intellectual treatise. The Boultings kept Rattigan's change of ending, too, in which a gramophone recording of Pinkie (Richard Attenborough) jams on 'I love you…' before he lays into his love interest. Rattigan didn't generally shy away from the brutality of romantic relationships. The Deep Blue Sea (1955) is testament to that. Influenced by the relationship between Rattigan and actor Kenneth Morgan, the play's curtain-twitching portrait of a squalid postwar London is still one of his most unflinching of love stories. Vivien Leigh was cast as Hester, the spurned lover of RAF pilot Freddie, played by Kenneth More, who had transferred from the original play. More suggested that Leigh brought too much glamour to the part. Yet with Leigh's mental health deteriorating and her personal life crumbling, she appears in hindsight to have been all too right for The Deep Blue Sea. Rattigan then teamed up with Leigh's husband Laurence Olivier on The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), but Rattigan's last great screen work was his collaboration a year later with Delbert Mann on the Oscar-nominated Separate Tables. Another of his tragic ensemble pieces, the film saw a wealth of stars gathered in a run-down Bournemouth hotel, all forced to examine their lives after the revelation of a scandal involving the retired Major Pollock played by David Niven. Niven has the film to thank for the only Oscar win of his career, and Rattigan for his second nomination. (He received his first in 1952 for scripting David Lean's The Sound Barrier.) What happened next might have been the apex of Rattigan's screen career yet turned out to be the beginning of the end. In 1960 he had started working with the Rank Organisation to adapt his T.E. Lawrence play Ross. It was to star Dirk Bogarde and Asquith was slated to direct. But there was a problem: another Lawrence film was already in the works. Out of respect to David Lean – and under some pressure from Lawrence of Arabia producer Sam Spiegel – the studio pulled the plug on the project. Bogarde called it his 'bitterest disappointment'. Rattigan and Asquith ploughed on, assembling star-studded casts for two further movies, The V.I.P.s (1963) and The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964), with all favours from friends called in. But even with Rattigan's work finding new audiences on television, the 1960s were relentlessly unforgiving. His last screenplay of note was the wonderful musical adaptation of Goodbye, Mr Chips (1969), with Peter O'Toole, before he fled into creative (and tax) exile to Bermuda. A knighthood in 1971 and a minor reconciliation with the theatre industry before his death in 1977 did little to remedy his unhappiness. The West End rediscovers Rattigan's work almost every decade. But the screen never forgot him. Terence Davies's hypnotic version of The Deep Blue Sea (2011) with Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston converted a whole new generation. Rattigan no doubt deserves a theatre. His contribution continues to enrich the British stage – especially in its deeply English themes, its styling and restraint. But his dedication to the screen suggests a Rattigan cinema wouldn't go amiss either.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store