New UK restaurants 2026

Looking for exciting new restaurants to visit? We’ve sent our experts across the UK to find the best new places to eat. Read our reviews below, and then have a sneak peak further down for hot-off-the-press news of upcoming restaurant openings to put in your diary. Want to know about the hottest new spots in the capital? Read our guide to the best London restaurant openings, or listen to the olive podcast where a restaurant critic shares 10 things you need to know about being a food influencer.

Now discover the best private dining rooms in the UK, the best restaurants with rooms in the UK and if you want to pull out all the stops, find out the UK's best showstopping restaurants to impress and the best chef's table experiences in the UK.

For a rejuvenating overnight stay, discover the best UK spa hotels for food lovers, then find out the best female-owned restaurants in the U.K. For a more casual affair, find out our favourite informal dining spots.

New UK restaurants in 2026

The Clockspire, Dorset

Originally built in 1864, The Clockspire is the sort of big, gabled landmark that makes you slow down for a second look. Inside it’s just as striking: lofty, raftered ceilings, bare stone and statement chandeliers give the place old-world drama with a clean, contemporary finish.

We started upstairs in the bar tucked into the eaves, which works perfectly well as a standalone cocktail spot. Our elderflower-spiked French Kiss was immaculately balanced, while the Apple Orchard (no alcohol) tasted crisp and properly grown-up. Both arrived with dangerously moreish artichoke crisps made using produce from the owner’s estate.

In the main dining room the cooking leans modern British with a confident, produce-first touch. A crab tart used the brown meat as a silky custard, lifted with bright ponzu. Pork belly came as two generous squares, rendered and fried until every edge was audibly crisp, with a bacon foam that had us mopping the plate clean with treacly, excellent sourdough.

For the main event, we ordered the Blackmore Vale T-bone to share, expertly cooked, with sides that felt like a roast dinner’s greatest hits – smoky kalettes, braised cabbage, plus a standout slow-cooked shin crowned with beef-fat brioche.

Dessert was a proud banana soufflé (light, beautifully set) with salted caramel and popcorn ice cream – one of the best sweet soufflés we’ve happily deflated in ages. Service was friendly, warm and genuinely attentive but delivered with the kind of slick confidence you’d expect in a serious dining room. Between that and the sense of place setting, it’s the sort of restaurant that feels special without tipping into stuffy. theclockspire.com

New UK restaurant openings in 2025

The General Tarleton, North Yorkshire

Dating back to 1762, this former coaching in has all the components of a classic country pub – carpets lining stone flag flooring, horseshoes nailed into the thick stone walls and roaring fires warming up cosy nooks. This isn’t a regular inn, it’s the first in a new hospitality venture from Tommy Banks, Matthew Lockwood and Neil Armstrong, breathing new life into closed venues.

There’s an elegant glaze over the top – yes, there are casks and kegs of Timothy Taylors and Turning Point ales served in the lively bar area, but also cocktails such as Ferrensby spritz featuring homegrown rhubarb and marigold aperitif. Likewise on the food menu, pub classics sit alongside elevated plates. Kick off with runny yolk scotch egg with homemade brown sauce or the graceful roast beetroot terrine, reminiscent of The Black Swan’s unctuous crapaudine dish. The pie is a highlight – a rich filling of steak laced with Black Sheep ale in a crisp pastry case (yes, the whole way round, as it should be), plus chips seasoned with garden herbs and malt vinegar. Whole BBQ monkfish tail slides off the bone into an aromatic curry, a grilled flatbread pocket on the side to mop up, while lamb shoulder sits atop creamy Yorkshire pecorino polenta. For dessert, try rich chocolate, miso and sour cherry pots conjured up by Tommy in The Black Swan kitchen pre-Michelin fame. Our surprise highlight was the apple crumble soufflé served with homemade custard ice cream, recommended by our friendly, informed waiter Sam.

olive tip: There’s a set menu (£26 two-courses, £30 for three) Monday to Thursday evenings and Thursday and Friday lunchtimes. Think buttermilk chicken with hot honey and kimchi, Cumberland sausage and mash with mustard and onion gravy and lemon verbena rice pudding, poached pear and puffed wild rice. generaltarletonferrensby.co.uk

BAYTE, East Sussex

Housed in an ex-showroom on the charming King’s Road in St Leonards-on-Sea, BAYTE welcomes you with a view of its open kitchen, showcasing a green bar that stretches the length of the restaurant and lime-washed walls. The décor screams "cool", but there’s still a warmth that invites you in. While this is undoubtedly the perfect setting for a special-occasion meal, it's ideal for groups of friends catching up over shared plates, and locals popping in for dessert and a cocktail.

The accomplished menu is highly seasonal thanks to the locally sourced produce from along the coast in Lewes, and free-range, organic meat from Haye Farm in Devon. Expect Italian references like hand-rolled pastas, which include pesto alla trapanese with the first tomatoes of the summer. The kitchen team’s skills are evident in the balance and details of the dishes, from the chrysanthemum leaves adding a herbaceous note to wild bass, to the rich and decedent browned butter hollandaise served alongside a perfectly rare sirloin. bayte.co.uk

The Great Bustard, Wiltshire

Game features prominently at this freshly renovated pub and restaurant with rooms on the edge of the Durnford Estate, as chef Jordan Taylor liaises daily with the estate team.

Both the cosy bar and brighter, wood-beamed restaurant serve elevated comfort food: partridge goujons, game terrine and venison, while vegetarians are equally well catered for in hyper-seasonal, estate-grown dishes like glazed beetroot, ancient grain risotto and smoked ewe’s curd.

The kitchen’s skills are most evident in puddings such as mont blanc with condensed milk ice cream, and clementine parfait and cognac sorbet. Take a souvenir home from the on-site farm shop, which offers homemade dill pickled cucumbers, piccalilli, fig and date chutney and strawberry jam. thegreatbustard.uk

Harry's, East Sussex

Stylish seaside boutique hotel The Gallivant in Camber Sands is the setting for Harry’s, where the vibe is very much upmarket beach house, soft sage and natural tones, leafy greenery and framed retro beachwear on the walls.

Kick off with a glass of English fizz before perusing a menu that spotlights local seasonal produce and classic French cookery by ex-Bibendum head chef Matthew Harris, from terrine de campagne and braised rabbit in riesling to sharing dishes like côte de boeuf in green peppercorn sauce

Starters of crisp spring vegetable salad with creamy goat’s curd, and delicate smoked eel with an oozy soft-boiled egg, rye bread and a peppy celeriac remoulade set a tone of refined simplicity that continues into mains – star billing of which goes to a sturdy, juicy Romney Marsh Barnsley chop winningly matched with earthy mushroom duxelles, asparagus, crisp pomme frites and a creamy sauce paloise: a variation of béarnaise flavoured with mint rather than tarragon, it’s a bull’s-eye match with the lamb.

Desserts are pared back. A petit pot au chocolat has grown-up cocoa bitterness, while a vanilla panna cotta with grappa and strawberries matches sweetness with a welcoming boozy kick. You can also order a tarte fine pommes flambée, brought to the table and set alight. Don’t miss out on a dram from the digestif table topped with beautiful bottles of amber spirits, from cognac to calvados.

The wine list has a plentiful European selection but also a strong focus on English bottles, only fitting given Harry’s sits in the heart of wine country. We drink a juicy, crunchy Artelium pinot noir from the South Downs. thegallivant.co.uk

Winsome, Manchester

Chef Shaun Moffat, after winning acclaim at Manchester’s The Edinburgh Castle gastropub, has moved across town to open Winsome, a restaurant and adjoining bar at Whitworth Locke, a hip aparthotel on the edge of Manchester's Gay Village. “Thoughtful British cooking” is the tagline, with Shaun using prime seasonal produce, from Yorkshire rhubarb to Brixham crab, in multi-size sharing dishes of, for example, confit mussels and trotter on toast, pork chop with a sorrel, mustard and trout roe sauce, or whole brill with parsley liquor. Dishes are served with European wines and, from the Winsome bar, well-executed classic and original cocktails. winsomemcr.co.uk