Morecambe, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

The “best afternoon tea ever” – arguably the main event at this “Art Deco masterpiece” of a hotel, in a “stunning location” overlooking Morecambe Bay. The food in the dining room – the ‘Sun Terrace’ – is “always enjoyable”, too; although the odd cynic says “you’re paying for the views”.

“Craig Wilkinson continues to offer well-above-average, classically inspired food at his pub in the eponymous hamlet of Bay Horse, opposite what was once the similarly eponymous Bay Horse station on the West Coast Main Line”. Even those who have been “dining there for circa 20 years” (Wilkinson’s family has owned the venue even longer) just “cannot fault it” – and, “whether you’re sat in the bar area mixing with the locals, dining in the restaurant, or enjoying a drink in the beautiful garden”, the “atmosphere is fantastic” too.

“It is a 6-6-6 in my view!” – Simon Rogan’s converted blacksmith’s workshop on the southern edge of the Lake District towards Morecambe Bay is still riding high on its elevation in 2022 to three Michelin stars: the first UK restaurant north of Watford Gap to have entered the world’s top tier, according to the ‘Guide Rouge’. Most reports of the many we receive (it’s one of the top-20 most commented-on destinations in our annual diners’ poll outside London) say such acclaim is fully justified, with more than one diner this year describing eating here the “best meal of my life, as simple as that!”. “Waiters move as though choreographed in a ballet” (“they even spotted that I was left handed and so laid out my place settings to suit me!”) and deliver “gastronomic paradise” overseen day-to-day by head chef, Paul Burgalières, who produces a 15-course menu for £250 per person, with much of the produce coming from Simon’s nearby ‘Our Farm’. Niggles? Concerns about prices have risen somewhat year on year. There is also a fear among a small minority that the experience risks becoming so “polished to perfection” as to be almost “perfunctory”. The main take-away though? “Simply the best!”

“All the style of next door with just 6 of you” – that’s the deal at Simon Rogan’s ‘behind the scenes’ dining experience at his Lakeland legend, where you eat surrounded by chefs in the development kitchen with ongoing explanations about the culinary techniques underpinning the restaurant and how they work in coordination with their own ‘Our Farm’ smallholding nearby. All reports suggest it lives up to the experience next door, but with a different ‘insider’ spin.

“A dog-friendly bar with good beer… an outstanding restaurant… and just up the road from my house!” – so says one delighted Lake District local about Kevin & Nicola Tickle’s “staggeringly good” pub, where a simpler lunchtime menu gives way at night to a ten-course offering for £120 per head. Ratings went from strength to strength here this year as a couple of diners nominated it as their best meal of the year. Kevin spent 10 years at nearby L’Enclume and was also head chef at Forest Side in Grasmere.

2022 Review: An “interesting, imaginative menu” giving a modern British twist to Mediterranean cooking “caters for all tastes” at this pub, which features an attractive contemporary interior. “Desserts are especially delicious.”

“An amazing setting – beside the River Wyre – by a historical toll bridge” sets the scene at “The Beaumes’ comfortable yet quirkily decorated pub, which continues to offer the best food on the Fylde (that sticky-out bit of Lancashire on the edge of which sits Blackpool).” The “mouth-wateringly good” cuisine is just the start of it at the 2024 AA Inn of the Year, with the site housing seriously stylish rooms (in the main building but also luxury tree-house style lodges), plus a deli, farm shop and gallery stocking homewares and jewellery. Top Menu Tip – “Meat, fish and vegetarian choices are all excellent. Cheese Beignet starter is mouth-wateringly good. Beef suet pudding is gorgeous”.

2021 Review: “A top option on the Fylde coast” – Paul Moss and Caroline Upton’s well-established and jazzily decorated bar/restaurant near Blackpool only attracted limited feedback last year, but still good all-round.

In its current format since 1984 (and originally built in, er, 1688), this pub and restaurant won renewed interest and good all-round feedback in our annual diners’ poll, in part down to a favourable December 2023 visit from The Observer’s Jay Rayner: he praised a listed building that’s “deliciously seasoned with history” and “seriously impressive”, proper “cheek-slapping, belly-pleasing” food – notwithstanding being massively let down by its décor and “eye-achingly awful” website.