Good Food Guide Awards 2025: The shortlist is out – where to book a table now

The restaurant scene can be pretty volatile, with chains seemingly taking over and independent neighbourhood boltholes opening and going bust on a loop, often within a couple of months. It can be hard to know where exactly you should pin your hopes when it comes to a slap up meal out.

That’s why The Good Food Guide Awards 2025, exists, to point your taste buds in the tastiest direction. In partnership with OpenTable, the honours this year are taking place on February 3 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in central London, hosted by broadcaster and former Blue Peter presenter Richard Bacon.

While you’ll have to wait until then to find out which establishments are going to take home the gongs, you can get a head start on booking tables at the restaurants set to be on every ‘top 10 eats’ list for the rest of 2025.

We’d start by checking out this lot…

Osip, Somerset

Based in a 300-year-old country inn, on the brink of a pine forest, Osip in Bruton, Somerset is all clean lines, white washed walls and glowy lights. You’ll want to move in, even before you taste the food. Luckily, it has four guest bedrooms, opening soon, so you could roll out of bed and into the dining room for a set tasting menu that goes big on ingredients grown on the restaurant’s own farm.

The lunch menu is pretty good value (£95) and features things like Jerusalem artichoke, Orkney scallop, roasted chicken juices and treacle and ale sourdough with kefir butter, as well as an intriguing pudding of winter roots, bergamot and pine nut ice creams. Osip, its fruit and veg plots and sister wine bar and bistro, The Old Pharmacy, are the work of chef patron Merlin Labron Johnson who got a Michelin star when he was just 24, at a former joint, Portland – he knows what he’s doing.

It’s up against the gold and glitz of The Ritz Restaurant in London, as well as the warm madeleines made to order at the legendary St JOHN (Smithfield), also in London, for the Restaurant of the Year gong.

Skof, Manchester

The Manc restaurant is anti-pretentiousness of any kind, despite the fact that what’s on offer is very much seasonal British tasting menu fare. So you should feel relaxed and at home when tucking into cured mackerel with horseradish, with potato flatbread, fermented gooseberries and dill, or gingerbread mousse with poached quince.

The space is cool too – a former drapery warehouse – in Manchester’s NOMA neighbourhood. Skof is up for Best New Restaurant, alongside…

Lyla, Edinburgh

Seafood is central to everything that’s served at Lyla Edinburgh. The chefs there take the best line caught fish and sustainable shellfish they can get their oven gloves on from the Scottish Isles, and turn it into delicate plates of art.

They serve a 10-course tasting menu in the evening, or a five to seven course extravaganza at lunch time, celebrating all that seafood alongside organic fruit, veg and meat and foraged ingredients too. It’s already won a slew of best restaurant awards, so there’s quite a buzz around it – you’ll want to book a table asap once they reopen for the year on January 16.

Briar, Somerset

Another west country restaurant is making a name for itself. Briar, also in Bruton, is similarly up for best new restaurant, and comes from former River Cottage alumni and Great British Menu 2022 finalist Sam Lomas – he also happens to be up for the Chef to Watch award too.

Briar is in the old ironmonger’s shop at hotel Number One and the menu is super seasonal and they say, “unfussy”, from Westcombe cheddar gougeres, wild garlic capers to smoked pork sausage, cider mustard and Somerset apple cake, butterscotch and clotted cream. Stay at the hotel and you’ll be able to try breakfast too – think compotes and soft boiled eggs.

Jake Dolin – Manteca, London

They even have an in-house salumeria, for all your cured meat needs. Order the strozapretti, brown crab cacio e pepe (super rich and peppery), have a glass of wine and imagine you’re on your holidays.

Meedu Saad – Super8 Restaurants, London

Giving Dolan a run for his money in the Chef to Watch category is head chef Meedu Saad, best known for helming KILN in Soho, London. Kiln is a Thai grill, where you can sit at the bar while the chefs cook over hot coals and open flames, grilling skewers of insanely delicious meat and throwing together fiery salads. Always order the stir fried Cornish greens and soy, and the clay pot baked glass noodles with Tamworth belly and brown crab meat is an absolute must.

The Russell Norman Award for Restaurateur of the Year

The shortlist in full…

Restaurant of the Year sponsored by OpenTable:

Restaurant Jericho, Leicestershire

St JOHN (Smithfield), London

Opheem, Birmingham

The Ritz Restaurant, London

Best New Restaurant sponsored by Tripleseat:

Row on 5, London

Albatross Death Cult, Birmingham

Native, Stoke Bliss

Drinks List of the Year sponsored by Richard Brendon:

KOL/Fonda, London

Timberyard/Montrose, Edinburgh

Chef to Watch sponsored by Champagne Billecart-Salmon:

Elliot Hashtroudi – Camille, London

Sam Lomas – Briar, Somerset

Kyu Jeong Jeon and Duncan Robertson – Dongnae, Bristol

Maria Close – Rockliffe Hall, County Durham

Philip Mcenaney and Katie Austin – Boath House, Nairn

Best Value Set Menu:

Josephine Bouchon, London

The Palmerston, Edinburgh

Dilsk, Brighton

Pompette, Oxford

Wilson’s, Bristol

The Devonshire, London

Most Beautiful Restaurant:

Grace & Savour, West Midlands

The Dover, London

Hearth, Hampshire

The Park, London

Woven by Adam Smith, Berkshire

Widlflowers, London

The Russell Norman Award for Restaurateur of the Year:

David Carter, DCCO group

Jason & Irha Atherton, The Social Company

James Gummer, Olivier van Themsche & Phil Winser, Public House Group

Guirong Wei, Master Wei, X’ian Impression, Dream X’ian

Florence Mae Maglanoc, Maginhawa Group

Dom Hamdy, Ham Group

Jonathan MacDonald and Daniel Spurr, Scoop Restaurants