Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Uckfield
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Uckfield restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 63 restaurants in Uckfield and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Uckfield restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Uckfield Restaurants
1. The Set
British, Modern restaurant in Brighton
50 Preston Road - BN1
In June 2021, Dan Kenny found a new home for his project in Café Rust, not far from Preston park and underneath the viaduct. It’s a small place, with a two-person team in the kitchen aiming for big, umami flavours from a fixed 14-20 course tasting menu over two-and-a-half hours, and though it inspires somewhat limited feedback, fans say results are “just flawless”.
2. Terre à Terre
Vegetarian restaurant in Brighton
71 East St - BN1
“So many dimensions of flavour on each plate, each excellently balanced” and service with “just the right balance of the professional and the friendly” mean this veteran of The Lanes remains, for most reporters, “a revelation of how pleasing a vegetarian restaurant can be (and I am an omnivore!)” thanks to its “complex” dishes and “truly original flavour combinations”. Indeed, this “lively” venue is the most commented-on destination in town in our annual diners’ poll and the UK’s most prominent meat-free venue. Ratings, though, were dragged down a little this year by a few more cautious reporters who feel “it used to be a trail blazer but hasn’t moved on” and is “not as pleasing as it was”. On most accounts, though, it remains “worth the trip to the south coast”: “you don’t feel like you’re missing out on meat or fish”.
3. Limes Thai Kitchen
Thai restaurant in Lindfield
67 High Street - RH16
“Really impressive and tasty food that’s a cut above usual Thai fare” and “attentive service” win praise for this local Thai, on the high street of a super-cute village. Top Tip – “top delivery” too: “speedy delivery and delicious food; and a good range for vegans too”.
4. The Chilli Pickle
Indian restaurant in Brighton
17 Jubilee St - BN1
“Still one of Brighton’s top Indians” – this Arts Quarter operation (est. 2008) offers “very good authentic cuisine, with dishes you usually never see here in the UK” – barbecue surf and turf, say, or interesting regional curries – and benefits from a “great atmosphere” too.
5. The Tasting Room, Rathfinny Wine Estate
British, Modern restaurant in Alfriston
Rathfinny Wine Estate - BN26
Panoramic views of the vineyards and South Downs accompany a trip to this seasonal dining room (which is closed in October during the wine harvest). Some reports are of outstanding cuisine from chef Chris Bailey, although there is the odd concern about some “huge mark-ups” on certain items. You can always opt for the “really relaxed” Flint Barn dining room also on the estate (“keenly priced, lovely posh grub with a large choice of wines to wash it all down”). There is also The Hut at Rathfinny – a wine bar with week-round opening.
6. English’s
Fish & seafood restaurant in Brighton
29-31 East St - BN1
“Traditional seafood in pleasant surroundings” has proved an enduring formula for this seafood veteran in the Lanes – one of the UK’s few historic provincial restaurants, dating as it does from the 1890s and run by the Leigh-Jones family since 1945. More critical reports say the “food quality can be a little hit or miss”; or alternatively that it’s “very good, but more pricey than it needs to be”. But “sat outside enjoying the sun, with great service and full-on Brighton atmosphere, you can have a great meal”.
7. The Griffin Inn
British, Modern restaurant in Fletching
“Family friendly and lively” Sussex pub-with-rooms that was taken over by the national Young’s chain in 2022, after over four decades under the Pullan family. There is the odd grumble about the switch, but most reports remain positive and its “lovely terrace” in particular continues to win approval.
8. Coach And Horses
British, Modern restaurant in Danehill
School Ln - RH17
2021 Review: This “delightful pub with an excellent garden” on the edge of Ashdown Forest wins solid ratings for an inviting menu of locally sourced dishes. A family-run freehouse, it also has a strong list of local beers, wines and ciders.
9. Middle House
British, Modern restaurant in Mayfield
High Street - TN20
2022 Review: They “recently extended the outdoor space and garden” at this imposing wattle-and-daub Elizabethan inn, built for the Keeper of the Privy Purse to Elizabeth I, no less. Together with a “new menu” of snacks and heartier grub it now makes a “great eating place” by all accounts.
10. Ram Inn
restaurant in Firle
The Street - BN8
2022 Review: At the heart of a picture-perfect village in the South Downs National Park which was beloved by Virginia Woolf in her day, this rambling brick and flint pub-with-rooms has a “great garden, or more like field” (!) offering views over the Sussex countryside. Inside offers an “intimate” and “romantic” backdrop to “modern and fresh” food of a “reliable” bent.
11. The Cat Inn
British, Modern restaurant in West Hoathly
North Lane - RH19
This “great country pub” – a free house dating from the sixteenth century – benefits from inglenook fireplaces and beams inside and an inviting garden in the summer, and offers some “delicious” grub. It makes an “excellent stop when touring the local gardens”.
12. Rose and Crown
International restaurant in Cuckfield
London Road, - RH17
2021 Review: “High-quality ingredients are cooked well and provided by welcoming staff” at this West Sussex gastropub, run for six years by the family team of Mark Dennis, a food-loving former accountant, and his son Simon, a professional chef.
13. Ockenden Manor
British, Modern restaurant in Cuckfield
Ockenden Ln - RH17
Chef Steve Crane’s “excellent food” has been a feature of this “delightful” Elizabethan country-house spa-hotel for 23 years. Some reporters see it as very much an “old school, ladies who lunch, white tablecloths” venue – “no fireworks, just a decent meal in a quiet, refined setting”.
14. Gravetye Manor
British, Modern restaurant in East Grinstead
Vowels Lane - RH19
“Truly beautiful and with superb food” – “the gracious room with stunning gardens beyond (including a unique walled kitchen garden) help make for a very special experience” at this “fabulous location” – an Elizabethan country house deep in the Sussex countryside (whose grounds were laid out in the 1880s by its then-owner, a famous landscape gardener). A hotel since 1958, it was relaunched in 2018 with a new “brilliantly architecturally conceived modern dining room” – a “light and airy space” whose “gorgeous views” mean “you actually feel it’s part of the outside”. And – having largely sunk from view in terms of gastronomy – nowadays its “quietly impressive” performance under chef George Blogg is establishing itself as one of the top 10 most commented-on destinations outside the capital in our annual diners’ poll. He “has significantly upped the kitchen’s game, with a three-course menu, perfectly prepared and exquisitely presented, incorporating wonderfully fresh herbs and vegetables” backed up by a heavyweight wine list. Top Tip – stay the night and “breakfast is every bit as good as dinner!”
15. The Star
British, Modern restaurant in Alfriston
High Street - BN26
In a medieval village at the foot of the South Downs, a “fifteenth-century inn transformed into a delightful boutique hotel and restaurant” by hospitality guru Olga Polizzi, who acquired it in 2021 for her now three-strong chain. Most (if not all) reporters laud River Café alumnus Tim Kensett’s “delicious” locally sourced food, though “what makes this place is the service and setting” (the “very sophisticated” decor includes Bloomsbury Set artworks, and, in the dining room, a striking monochrome Elizabethan-style floor).
16. The Beacon Kitchen
British, Modern restaurant in Tunbridge Wells
Tea Garden Lane - TN3
This “smart and trendy location” from the ‘I’ll Be Mother’ group, set in an Arts & Crafts house with “lovely views” over Happy Valley, offers “high-quality food, attentive service and great surroundings”. There’s also “a nice terrace for meals, if the weather permits”. Not surprisingly, it’s “popular and often hard to book”.
17. The Ivy Royal Tunbridge Wells
British, Modern restaurant in Tunbridge Wells
46-50 High Street - TN1
2023 Review: A “family favourite” for its “lovely atmosphere and brasserie food” – and handily close to Tunbridge Wells station – this spin-off from the ever-expanding Ivy operation is well regarded by most reporters, but also suffers from the complaints commonly levelled against its Identikit siblings: most especially indifferent cooking that’s “poor value for money”.
18. Hotel du Vin & Bistro
British, Modern restaurant in Tunbridge Wells
Crescent Road - TN1
2021 Review: “For a thoroughly enjoyable traditional afternoon tea (HdV certainly make an occasion of this British tradition)”, or “a very good full English”, this fine-looking mansion still wins praise. However, more serious dining from its French bistro menu, as supported by its trademark wine list, attracted too little commentary for a rating last year.
19. Thackeray’s
French restaurant in Tunbridge Wells
85 London Rd - TN1
“Perhaps the most luxurious restaurant in Tunbridge Wells” – this “very smart Regency villa where [W.M.] Thackeray lived” provides a “very attractive” location for a meal; and is also praised for its “lovely, finely pitched service”. But while Patrick Hill’s well-regarded cuisine continues to win praise, there was also the odd reporter this year who felt it was “technically fine but with some over-fussy dishes that didn’t let the good-quality ingredients fully shine”.
20. MEATLiquor
Burgers, etc restaurant in Brighton
22-23 York Place - BN1
“The Dead Hippy burger is a dirty, dirty legend” – the best-named burger on British menus and “if not the easiest burger to eat definitely the tastiest” (especially when chased down by a boozy “hard shake”) – at the “cool” chain founded 15 years ago by Scott Collins and Yianni Papoutsis. The expansion of recent years seems to have ground to a halt with the closure of branches in Boxpark Croydon and Clapham Old Town, with a new strategy based around boosting sales via a national network of delivery kitchens launched in 2023. Top Tip – “root beer is available if you want a bit of real Americana!”
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