Gastropub restaurants in England
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Angel Inn
This attractive pub is set on top of a grassy hummock behind the Bowness shoreline. It's more big-city-modern than backcountry-cosy: leather sofas, wooden floors and blackboards, plus a gastropub menu of pork belly ballontine and honey-roasted chicken.
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Pheasant
Flying the flag for great British bar food, this chilled-out gastropub does the basics well; try the pheasant stuffed with bacon and leeks, and the gooey, crumbly Eton mess. To drink? Perhaps a pint of Pigswill (honestly – it's a local ale).
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Gilded Lily
Carlisle's answer to the city gastropub turns out reliable food: there's a good choice of seafood and steaks, and the Sunday roast is always good. The fireplaces and overhead skylight are original, left over from the building's former incarnation as a bank, but much of the furnishings are metropolitan-modern.
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Marlborough Tavern
Bath certainly isn't short on gastropubs, but the Marlborough is still very much top of the class. It's half cosy boozer, half contemporary bistro, with big wooden tables, deep seats, and a crackling fire on winter nights. Chef Richard Knighting previously worked in Michelin-starred restaurants, and it shows: his menu is a mix of heart-warming classics and cheffy showiness, and rarely fails to hit the mark.
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Star Inn
This thatch-roofed country gastropub is home to one of Yorkshire's best restaurants, with a menu that revels in top-quality produce from the surrounding countryside – Whitby cod with buttered marsh samphire, or Harome roe deer venison with wild mushrooms; there's also a gourmet vegetarian menu. It's the sort of place you won't want to leave, and the good news is you don't have to: the adjacent lodge has eight magnificent bedrooms (£180 to £260), each decorated in classic but luxurious country style. It's about 2 miles south of Helmsley, just off the A170.
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Anchor & Hope
The hope is that you’ll get a table without waiting hours because you can’t book at this quintessential gastropub, except for Sunday lunch at 2pm. The anchor is gutsy, British food. Critics love this place inside out and despite the menu’s heavy hitters (pork shoulder, salt marsh lamb shoulder cooked for seven hours and soy-braised shin of beef), vegetarians aren’t completely stranded.
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Princess of Shoreditch
Handsome pub with a buzzy atmosphere, frequented by a mix of City suits and media types. Food is gastropub standard but very well done, with daily specials and polite service. There’s a comprehensive wine list and a good ale selection. Head up the spiral staircase to the more refined (and slightly pricier) 1st-floor dining space (reservations advised).
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Chequers
Big, bold flavours are the order of the day at the Chequers: chunky pork chops, venison bangers and braised beef cheek, dished up perhaps with a classy champ mash or a rich red wine jus. It's scooped multiple awards for its food, and it's usually packed out for Sunday lunch. The pub is 18th-century, but feels designer-modern.
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James Monro
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Monro
The Monro has fast become one of the city's favourite spots for lunch, dinner and, especially, weekend brunch - the constantly changing menu of classic British dishes made with ingredients sourced as locally as possible has transformed this handsome old pub into a superb dining experience. Tough to find pub grub this good elsewhere, unless you go to its sister pub, the James Monro.
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Boathouse
Groovy gastropub with a ship's galley feel, and a deck overlooking the river to Flushing.
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Three Crowns Inn
Burrow into the countryside, 5 miles northeast of Hereford, to find this gorgeous 16th-century half-timbered gastropub. As well as delicious organic dishes made with rare-breed meats and homemade cheese, you can stay in classy rooms. Ullingswick is just off the A417.
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Clifton Sausage
At least six different bangers grace the menu at this refined gastropub, from Gloucester Old Spot to Beef and Spitfire Ale (there's always a veggie version, too). It's a popular lunch spot for the Clifton trendies, especially at weekends.
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Coach & Horses
One of Clerkenwell’s best gastropubs, sacrificing none of its old-world pub charm in attracting a well-heeled foodie crowd for its range of daily changing dishes.
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Engineer
One of London's original gastropubs, the Engineer has been serving up consistently good international cuisine to hip north Londoners for a fair while now. The courtyard garden is a real treat on balmy summer nights.
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Bollo
On the Chiswick/Acton fringes, this backstreet gastropub has been a huge success, run by local restaurateurs who redeveloped it from a simple local, offering a great seasonal menu and an open fire in winter. It’s best at weekends when liveliest, catering to a well-heeled, older crowd looking for a pub and dining room rolled into one.
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Wells Tavern
This popular gastropub, with a surprisingly modern interior (given its traditional exterior), is a real blessing in good-restaurant-deprived Hampstead. The menu is proper posh English pub grub – Cumberland sausages, mash and onion gravy, or just a full roast with all the trimmings. At the weekends you’ll need to fight to get a table or, more wisely, book.
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White Swan Pub & Dining Room
Despite looking like any other anonymous City pub from the street, inside the White Swan is anything but typical – a smart downstairs bar that serves excellent pub food under the watchful eyes of animal trophies, and an upstairs dining room with a classic, meaty British menu (two-/three-course meal £26/29.75).
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Yanwath Gate Inn
Pubs don't get any better than the Yat, 2 miles south of town. Named Cumbria's Top Dining Pub for the last thee years ln Good Pub Guide, the food is big on rich, generous dishes that showcase the region's meats and game: venison, saltmarsh lamb, rare-breed pork, local goose. The setting is a treat, too.
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Cow
Owned by Tom Conran, son of celebrated former restaurateur Sir Terence, this attractive boozer was one of London’s original gastropubs. Name of the game both upstairs and downstairs at the main bar is seafood: Irish rock oysters, haddock fishcakes, and pasta with cuttlefish and samphire.
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Duke of Cambridge
The UK’s first certified organic pub is a great place to avoid the crowds, as it’s tucked some way down a side street off the Essex Rd where casual passers-by rarely tread. There’s a fantastic selection of beers and ales on tap, a great wine list and an interesting organic menu with a Mediterranean bent. You can eat in the pub proper for a relaxed meal, or enjoy more formal service in the restaurant at the back (reservations are a good idea in the evenings).
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Lots Road Pub & Dining Room
Even this charmingly tucked-away gastropub’s affectation of listing prices in hundreds of pence is forgiven as light floods through the windows into the high-ceilinged, wood-lined curved dining area and onto the black-and-chrome bar, where choice wines are sold by the glass. Service is tip-top and the regularly changing menu may read as standard fare – beef, salmon, lamb – but it’s all delicious; don’t miss the sticky toffee pudding; Sunday roasts are deservedly popular, as are the cheap Sunday evening and Monday set meals for a tenner. The 606 Club round the corner provides jazz.
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Gascoyne Place
Another quality gastropub opposite the Theatre Royal.
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Eagle
London’s first gastropub may have seen its original owners move on, but it’s still a great place for a bite to eat and a pint, especially at lunchtime, when it’s relatively quiet. Watch the chefs work their magic right behind the bar, above which is chalked the menu.
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Garrison Public House
The Garrison’s traditional green-tiled exterior and rather distressed, beach-shack interior are both appealing. It boasts an actual cinema (free films every Sunday 7pm, intermissions for drinks provided) in its basement, but it’s the food – razor clams, black face lamb gigot with roast squash, and pumpkin, chickpea and courgette cake – that lures punters to this evergreen Bermondsey gastropub. If you don’t fancy nearly bashing your neighbour’s elbow every time you lift your fork, though, come for breakfast (8am to 11.30am weekdays, 9am to 11.30am weekends).
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