The very best gastropubs in the UK for eating and drinking

Norfolk

The Gunton Arms is home to the finest collection of modern art in a 100-mile radius and also one of the UK’s best chefs (Stuart Tattersall, the ex-head chef with Mark Hix). He cooks up local meat and fish on an open fire in the medieval banqueting hall-adjacent dining room, while you dine on venison from the 1,000 acre deer park where the rustic yet romantic boozer is situated. 

Art dealer Ivor Braka opened The Gunton Arms in 2011, bringing hearty cooking to a former country house hotel near the north Norfolk coast (which is where they source Cromer crab and other fabulously fresh fish). World-beating works by Damien Hirst, Lucian Freud, Paula Rego and Frank Auerbach lay in casual wait behind various corners, and though the imposing Elk Room is the main restaurant area, there’s also a side room dedicated to the work of Tracey Emin. Awesome stuff. 

Newton-in-Bowland, Lancashire

You could argue that a gastropub cannot be so named if it doesn’t do a proper pie. Well, Stosie Madi’s award-winning pies at The Parkers Arms are the stuff of legend. Their crimped crusts might contain curried mutton, Coronation cod or pheasant and mushrooms – as they did on my most recent visit. I was particularly seduced by the mash that comes with them, which is about 70 percent butter to 30 percent potato (the correct ratio).

You’ll also find eclectic dishes as fresh langoustines slathered with garlic butter, Lebanese mezze with Cornish tuna koftas and Lancashire cheese churros. Madi’s Senegalese, Gambian and Lebanese heritage come into play as much as the local game sourced from the surrounding woodland. This country inn is set in the jaw-dropping Forest of Bowland in Lancashire which looks like something from Lord of the Rings. Its roaring fire, impeccable wine list and real Lancashire approach to service will warm your cockles (and your mussels). 

Hayfield, Derbyshire

Although Manchester’s dining scene is super hot right now, if you ask your friendly Mancunian foodie (i.e. me) to recommend a next-level gastropub, they’ll likely point you in the direction of The Peak District, where you’ll find The Pack Horse in Hayfield. Pub classics abound (think triple-cooked chips, Barnsley chop, proper roasts and pies) but not without a touch of modern ‘citizen of the world’ flair (beetroot comes with ajo blanco and homemade mayo might be jazzed up with a dab of Korean gochujang). Don’t even think of sleeping on that salted caramel custard tart. 

This is one of my favourite places to go on New Year’s Day when I like to drag myself up to the highest hill I can manage, wistfully survey the landscape, and scramble back down as quickly as possible for a celebratory pint and a few oysters.

Suffolk

Owned by the irreverent Brendan Padfield whose collection of ‘propaganda art’ adorns the walls of the 16th-century inn, Suffolk’s The Unruly Pig has won countless awards including topping the Estrella Damm Best Gastropubs list three times, most recently in 2025. 

Chef Dave Wall’s menu is game-heavy, rooted in classic pub food but with an Italian accent and cheffy flourishes. Think rabbit kidneys on toast, venison bolognese with tagliatelle and octopus carpaccio with Gentleman’s Relish – which comes as a foam, naturally. Wall is clearly a feeder, as all good gastro pub chefs should be. A signature dish is his Iberico presa, a highly marbled cut of pork, with an accompanying braised cheek raviolo. It’s one of the richest, most ribsticking things I have eaten in a long time. 

Read more: We ate at the UK’s ‘best’ gastropub – here’s what it was really like

Bruton

The Three Horseshoes was destined to be excellent; a spruced up (but still retaining plenty of ye olde character) 17th century inn on the outskirts of artsy Bruton, with one of the UK’s best chefs in charge. Margot Henderson of east London’s much-swooned-over Rochelle Canteen oversees the joint and the menu has much in common with her long-running Shoreditch restaurant, where food leans every-so-slightly medieval.

In the small, flagstone-flanked dining rooms you’ll find a chalkboard menu brimming with thje likes of steamed mutton pudding, beef and pickled walnut pie, and devilled kidneys on toast, as well as featuring foraged wild garlic from the local village lanes. These hearty but majestically well-considered meals sit alongside a crafty, punchy cocktail menu (make ours a martini, please) and the puddings selection reliably always features a seasonal crumble. If that all sounds a bit much, worry not, there are cosy bedrooms upstairs to flop into should you go too hard on the boeuf.

Fife, Scotland

The adoration of your peers is surely the loudest applause you can get and The Kinneuchar Inn in Fife is constantly heaped with praise from esteemed chefs and restaurateurs up and down the UK. Simplicity is at the heart of the menu: expect a chalkboard full of high-flavour, low-faff dishes like majestic Lincoln Red beef sirloin with mash, braised red onion and horseradish, smoked hake and skate fishcakes with tartare sauce, or homemade Greek sheftalia sausage, with white cabbage salad and tzatziki. Scottish seafood is big here, too: Carlingford oysters, Skye langoustines or fried chipirones caught in the Moray Firth. On bank holidays, they do a mean fried chicken bun almost too big to get your chops around, all made from scratch. It’s all served in a cosy front-room-like space flooded with light from the big pub windows. 

If you fancy extending your stay, The East Neuk of Fife (Neuk means ‘nook’ in Scots), where the Kinneuchar sits, is sort of like Scotland’s answer to the Cinque Terra (albeit a bit nippier). All ‘Mini Eggs’ coloured fishing villages, coastal walks and spanking fresh seafood. If you visit during summer, you might even spot a puffin or two. 

Mitton, Lancashire

Nigel Haworth is a household name for anyone partial to a bit of fine dining in Lancashire, who has taken on the project of The Three Fishes since 2021. The pretty, whitewashed pub’s menu is proudly driven by produce from its one-acre vegetable garden complete with polytunnels, greenhouses and, eventually, an edible forest. Zero waste, permaculture and biodiversity are all part of the sustainable ethos underpinning everything and who doesn’t love a poke around a veg patch before lunch? It’s one of my favourite things to do. 

The food here is spectacular, with dishes like salmon with hot prawn crumpets and treacle dressing, cornfed chicken with English truffle, maitake mushroom and olive oil mash, and celeriac and shitake lasagne with cappuccino sauce. I absolutely loved a simple plate of English asparagus with hollandaise and a trembling ‘lemon meringue pie’ souffle dessert which topped and tailed an impressive five-course springtime lunch. There’s even an entirely plant-based five-course, farm-to-fork menu. It’s not all highfalutin though: Fridays are still chippy tea night.

Charlbury, Cotswolds

Sitting pretty at the centre of one of the Cotswolds’ most picturesque and chi-chi villages, The Bull was taken over in 2023 by two local lads: James Gummer and Phil Winser, who made their name running swanky west London gastropub The Pelican. Its sparse and spartan saloons (500-year-old brick walls, polished flagstone floors, fireplaces almost big enough to roast an actual bull) are a tip-off for the Trad British menu, but they don't do justice to the generosity of the cooking.

We ordered enough small plates to set the wooden table groaning, and it was all incredible – from raw local beef with mustard to garden-fresh veg and pork and apple, plus an absolute heap of homemade soft-serve ice cream to finish. The huge, terraced beer garden is a leafy sun trap too.

Bettws Newydd, Monmouthshire

If it’s castles you’re into, this part of the UK has them by the bucketload, so factor a few historical stop-offs into your journey before winding your way down the snakelike country roads to your Welsh gastropub reward. Welsh rarebit as an opening snack is a no-brainer but the rest of the seasonally guided menu will be harder to choose from without FOMO. Will it be Wye lamb shoulder with confit potato, red wine sauce, kalettes and anchovy mayo or crispy pig’s head with sauerkraut? Fish and seafood are a big draw too, while the wine list has everything from Pet Nat to Cote Rotie with plenty of local cider if that’s your preferred bevvie. 

Usk itself is a picture postcard Welsh town which is famous for being covered with flowers. It has won the Royal Horticultural Society’s ‘Wales In Bloom’ competition 37 years in a row. It takes its name from the River Usk on which it sits, perfect if you enjoy a bit of salmon fishing.

Highgate, London

Highgate is posh, but I’ll tell you what – it’s one of the best parts of London for a proper slap up Sunday lunch. And there is no better Sunday lunch than at the Red Lion and Sun, a cosy, wood burning fire-type gastropub with cracking roasts (lamb shank, beef rib, Côte de boeuf for two and a whole lot more), and a very nice main menu for sharing: we’re talking oysters, Korean chicken wings and a mean roast chicken with chips, salad and mayonnaise.

There’s a very nice beer garden in the front and the back, and in winter, they put out heated tents with fairy lights and sell frozen margs from a little truck. You can’t ask for much more than that.

Rock, Cornwall

A much-loved ’90s pub revamped by Paul and Emma Ainsworth in 2019, The Mariners in Rock near Padstow in Cornwall is, as you would imagine, heavy on the seafood. There are mussels for days, fried oysters with tartare sauce, locally caught dayboat monkfish with cockle and clam butter, and a hot dog made out of pollock. It’s not all fish though. They do a mean shepherd’s pie, seasoned with seaweed and an absolutely ridiculous Yukon Gold chip butty with three different types of cheese (Cornish vintage cheddar, Cornish brie, aged parmesan, since you asked) and truffle mayonnaise. 

This is a Sharp’s Brewery pub so grab yourself a pint of Doom Bar, gaze out at the view of the unspeakably beautiful Camel Estuary with its famous sandy beaches and breathe in the salty sea air as everything slides into perspective.

Sedburgh, Cumbria

As culinary mash-ups go, German and Japanese aren’t the most likely bedfellows, especially when they are found on the menu of a gastropub in a Cumbrian town most famous for its abundance of bookshops. But this is head chef Nina Matsunaga’s heritage and it’s expertly woven into the menu at The Black Bull. 

Produce doesn’t get much more local. Most of what’s on the table here is heritage breeds and game sourced within walking distance from the pub. Everyone is catered for. Menus feature dishes like Howgill Herdwick lamb loin with kimchi and cauliflower and Nina’s Great British Menu kalamansi dessert complete with golf ball mochi – as someone who likes to play with their food, I loved the interactive element of this dish. But there’s a pie night and a curry night too with options that’ll keep your bill under £50 for two with at least a drink each. Afterwards? Relax in the bar with a nightcap and flick through a few books on Yorkshire dialect and stay overnight in one of the properly gorgeous rooms.

East Sussex

In Brighton you’re spoilt for choice when it comes to places to eat, but one of the best local restaurant collectives is The Gingerman Group, and their rural outpost, which sits between the small East Sussex towns of Henfield and Hurstpierpoint, is by far my favourite. Whether you’ve spent the afternoon gandering over the South Downs’ lush hills  – which I’d definitely recommend for working up your appetite – or you’ve just driven up from the centre of town (which takes just 20 minutes), nearby nature has bled into every inch of this pub.

The menu rotates seasonally and features Sussex-sourced meat, fish and vegetables, but always embodies the vibe of refined pub classics and can be washed down with locally-brewed ales and wine from nearby vineyard Ridgeview. It’s elevated for sure, but something about the alfresco benches, the gorgeous Sussex backdrop and the warm, not-too-formal service makes it feel like a restful spot to fill up on some really outstanding food.

Stoke Newington, London

Affectionately-named Stokey’s Church Street is packed with all sorts of cosy pubs, chic restaurants and independent boutiques, but one of the stand-outs has to be The Clarence Tavern, which was given a new lease of life in 2020 by the same founders of long-time gastro classic the Anchor and Hope.

This is the place to come for a long, wine-fuelled lunch which rolls over into the dinner hours, for big plates and small plates and feasting so well you’ll only just be able to squeeze in dessert. Expect a seasonal, changing menu with a rustic vibe: packed with zingy, interesting starters like like harissa roast beetroots and pumpkin caponata and fried polenta, plenty of hearty meat and fish mains as well as proper old school sharing plates to pass around big tables, like chicken, bacon and leek pie and roast lamb with the most moreish dauphinois potatoes I’ve ever shoved down my gob.