Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Ashbourne
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Ashbourne restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 17 restaurants in Ashbourne and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Ashbourne restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Ashbourne Restaurants
1. The Fork & Furrow
British, Modern restaurant in Alfreton
The White Hart Inn, Inns Lane, Moorwood Moor - DE55
After undergoing a £50,000 renovation in March 2023, The White Hart Inn restaurant became brand new restaurant concept – The Fork & Furrow.The expertly designed menus offer culinary experiences to surprise the senses, partnering with local suppliers to...
2. The Horseshoes Long Lane
British, Modern restaurant in Ashbourne
Long Lane - DE6
“A lovely (if small) bar and outside space” add to the appeal of this “nice old pub in the middle of nowhere but set in a pleasant Derbyshire Dales setting”. Run by chef Gareth Ward (a namesake of the chef-patron at Ynyshir in Wales), it offers “a good modern menu” with beer-battered haddock about the only dish on the menu that might qualify as ‘pub grub’.
3. Stones
British, Modern restaurant in Matlock
1C Dale Rd - DE4
Kevin Stone (the chef), wife Jade and sister Katie Temple provide “very good cooking and service” at this converted pub, whose glazed dining room, opening onto an outside terrace, makes the most of its “lovely setting” overlooking the River Derwent. Despite the heritage of the building, the menu – with a tasting option – is restaurant-style fare, not pub grub.
4. The Duncombe Arms
British, Modern restaurant in Ellastone
Main Rd - DE6
An “absolute gem just north of Uttoxeter” – this rather glamorous peak District venture is “the local we all wish we had”, to quote The Daily Mail’s Tom Parker Bowles; “the tarte Tatin alone is worth the visit” but the modern British menu (more casual in the bar) also features “excellent dishes such as omelette Arnold Bennett and crispy belly pork” and their rooms are “brilliant” if you stay overnight.
5. Jack Rabbits
Sandwiches, cakes, etc restaurant in Ashbourne
10 Saint John Street - DE6
2022 Review: At the back of The Greenman retail and entertainment complex, this stylishly designed venue – with quirky angled roof and steel-and-glass frontage – is worth knowing about as a useful all-day option.
6. The Cow Dalbury
Fish & seafood restaurant in Ashbourne
The Green, Dalbury Lees - DE6
“It’s nowhere near the sea, but they have great suppliers” and this handsome 19th-century Peak District village pub (fka The Black Cow) six miles from Derby is now a boutique inn (with six bedrooms) where Cornish-born chef, Nathan Senior, specialises in fresh seafood delivered daily from his home county. “They also do a fantastic steak. All round a perfect pub for a meal and stopover”.
7. The Saracen's Head
British, Modern restaurant in Shirley
Church Lane - DE6
2021 Review: “Really pleasing food”, “very good service” and a “lovely location” have earned plaudits over many years from the locals for Robin Hunter’s Derby Dales village gastropub, which has recently added the Church Lane Deli to its attractions.
8. The George
British, Modern restaurant in Alstonefield
2023 Review: “The days when this was a pub have long gone: it is an unashamedly ambitious restaurant which charges a full price for some very good cooking” – so say fans of this Peak District gastropub near the Dove Valley, who say “the chef knows what he is doing, and as long as you can afford it this is one of the best places to eat in the Peak District”. William Sitwell of The Telegraph paid it a visit in September 2022 and gave a similar but more nuanced view: the “cooking really is excellent and delicate with clever flavours” and “there is talent and charm by the bucket-load”, but he felt the dishes on the menu were presented and served in tiny portions, and he was encouraged to think of them as tapas. He declared, they “are the most un-tapassy things I’ve ever seen”.
9. The Lighthouse Restaurant
International restaurant in Ashbourne
New Road, Boylestone - DE6
2022 Review: Over a decade on, this fine dining spot “sitting at the back of the Rose and Crown plum in the middle of nowhere” is “a revelation” to some reporters, “trying too hard” for others. The “regularly changing tasting menu” (the only option, coming with or without wine flights) is “getting even better, if anything”.
10. Darleys
British, Modern restaurant in Derby
Darley Abbey Mill - DE22
2021 Review: This “old mill overlooking the river and weir” – part of the Darley Abbey Mills World Heritage site on the Derwent – has an “interesting menu and consistently high-quality cooking”. “Lunch here is always a pleasure, thanks to its setting, space and service as much as its food”.
11. Ebi Sushi
Japanese restaurant in Derby
59 Abbey St - DE22
“Continuing to provide high-quality Japanese food, if a bit limited in range, for very reasonable prices in something resembling a Tokyo cafe but in the middle of the north Midlands ... Why? It’s just down the road from the Toyota factory!”
12. The Peacock at Rowsley
British, Modern restaurant in Rowsley
Bakewell Rd - DE4
This “old manor house” handy for Chatsworth (and “not to be confused with the Peacock Inn in nearby Bakewell”), may “feel old-fashioned”, but its “great food and interesting menu” (from tasting menus to more “relaxed” options, both taken in the “fine dining room”) make it “a pleasure” by all accounts. Local ingredients (beef and lamb, say) are sourced from the Haddon Estate on which it sits.
13. Anoki
Indian restaurant in Derby
Old Picture Hall, 129 London Road - DE1
“Great food served by very helpful staff” has attracted a busy crowd for more than 20 years to Naveed Khaliq’s flagship, a stylishly converted former picture palace with a gilded vaulted ceiling. A well-known name for good-quality Indian cuisine in the north Midlands, it now has offshoots in Nottingham and Burton.
14. Piedaniels
French restaurant in Bakewell
Bath St - DE45
“Great-value French cuisine” has drawn guests for more than 25 years to this family-run venture from Eric & Christiana Piedaniel – both career chefs. It makes a “lovely quiet environment for lunch” just 10 minutes’ drive from historic Chatsworth House.
15. The Devonshire Arms at Beeley
British, Modern restaurant in Beeley
Devonshire Square - DE4
2022 Review: This “lovely gastropub” on the Duke of Devonshire’s Chatsworth estate gets mostly positive feedback for its “good food and real ales”. There’s sometimes a perception, though, that “it falls short” of its potential: “the cooking was fair, but it could be so nice here”.
16. Restaurant Lovage by Lee Smith
British, Modern restaurant in Bakewell
Bath Street - DE45
“This is the restaurant the Peak District has been waiting for” – a “chilled and unfussy” four-year-old, in a former stable block, which Lee Smith (ex-of the acclaimed Samphire on Jersey) opened after a crowdfunding drive. The staff’s “enthusiasm for the place makes for a happy experience, but most of all it’s the modern English cooking done very well in a lovely room… I’m lucky it’s my local”. Some reporters feel we rate it too conservatively, but to go further: more reports please!
17. Rafters at Riverside House
British, Modern restaurant in Ashford-in-the-Water
Riverside House Hotel, Fennel Street - DE45
“A lovely place, with excellent food, high levels of service, great wine list and a perfect location” – this prettily located Peak District restaurant with rooms occupies a solid, ivy-clad period mansion (complete with walled garden) and is owned by John and Alex Hill, but with a dining room run by Alistair Myers and Tom Lawson who run Rafters in Sheffield (see also).
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