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If you’re ever stuck for a restaurant to visit (and you’ve ticked off every place that the experts at Time Out have recommended), the Michelin Guide can sort you out. It’s got an legion of inspectors who anonymously visit eateries in every corner of the country to judge their quality of ingredients, mastery of flavour, personality and consistency. If a restaurant excels across all of those categories, it gets added to the guide and becomes in with a chance of earning a Michelin star later down the line.
The Michelin Guide is updated every single month and in April, there was one particular genre of restaurant that stood out. Of the 18 new entries, seven are gastropubs serving classic British fare. One of them was The Jolly Gardeners in Chester. Michelin described it as a ‘refurbished 1850s inn that has lost none of its “proper pub” character’. Punters there can sink their teeth into a sausage roll or the house black pudding as a pre-meal snack and have dishes such as bavette steak, pork belly with butterbean stew or wild garlic and buckwheat pancakes with gorgonzola to choose from for mains.
Another pub that’s new to the guide was the Grantley Arms in Grantley, where you’ll find comfort food like North Sea fish pie with mussels, braised beef and ale pie and a sage and onion fried chicken burger. There was also the Hollow Bottom in the Cotswolds village of Guiting Power. In the past, its daily changing menu has offered things like Bindaree beer battered haddock, crispy ‘Penhill’ pheasant schnitzel and venison chilli.
Beyond traditional British boozers, the lineup of new additions includes Asian, Mediterranean and South American-influenced joints, too. Eight years since first opening, Lucky Yu, one of Time Out’s favourite Edinburgh restaurants, made the cut. Lucky Yu originally launched in the city back in 2018 and offers a menu of specialty dumplings, yakitori, natural wines and brilliant cocktails.
The Refectory in Ugborough, Devon was another notable newcomer. The intimate 18-seater eatery sits within the grounds of Fowlescombe Farm, a working organic estate. The menu is constantly changing, so you can never predict what your options will be, but sample dishes include cured John Dory with granny smith apple and summer savoury, sirloin of shorthorn beef with cavalo nero pesto, and poached apple with honey and grains.
Every British restaurant added to the Michelin Guide in April 2026
- The Jolly Gardeners, Chester
- The Refectory, Ugborough
- 10 Tib Lane, Manchester
- General Tarleton, Ferrensby
- Grantley Arms, Grantley
- Hollow Bottom, Guiting Power
- Ilchester Arms, Symondsbury
- LUCKY YU, Edinburgh
- Le Nautique, St Peter Port
- Fan, London
- LUSO, London
- Moi, London
- Mareida, London
- Motorino, London
- NORA, London
- Osteria Angelina, London
- The Hart, London
- The Ship, Brancaster
Read more about London’s April additions to the Michelin Guide here.
Take a look at Time Out’s favourite restaurants in the UK here.
ICYMI: This isolated restaurant in Wales has been named one of the best steakhouses in the world.
Plus: Ottolenghi is opening its first ever restaurant in Scotland.
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