Entertainment Swindon

The UK’s leading independent restaurant guide – SquareMeal – has announced the best restaurants that the UK has to offer. SquareMeal’s UK Top 100 is the only list of its kind to exclude London’s restaurants – allowing the wider UK’s dining scene to truly shine.

Using a combination of thousands of reader votes and SquareMeal’s own expert critics, the UK Top 100 Restaurants list is a true reflection of Britain’s beautifully varied dining scene.

Birmingham leads the way with five restaurants in the list, including two in the top 10. This year’s highest new entry in the UK Top 100 is Tom Barnes’ magnificent Manchester restaurant Skof, which heads up a big year for Manchester, with Higher Ground, Another Hand, and The Sparrows all representing the city in the list.

Closer to home, we have two restaurants that made it into the top 100. Firstly, British and European cuisine restaurant Lumiere in Clarence Parade, Cheltenham. This smart little restaurant hidden away in one of Cheltenham’s Regency terraces is cherished by its regulars for its personal approach and consistently good food. Secondly, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, A Belmond Hotel. Few places hold as much gravitas as this Oxfordshire hotel.

This Tudor, wisteria-clad exterior and spellbinding organic gardens. The restaurant that is known for serving a timeless French cuisine with Asian ingredients subtly spiking the menu such as the flawless scallop escabeche, intense with orange, and a hum of lemongrass.

As ever, Scotland has also established itself as a world-class food destination, and we saw three new Edinburgh entries all break into the upper echelons of the UK Top 100 list this year – Stuart Ralston’s superb new restaurant Lyla at number 11, and Montrose and Fhior at 33 and 34 respectively – joining another seven Scottish restaurants in the list. Other powerhouse culinary counties like North Yorkshire, Cumbria and Berkshire are also well represented, but fifteen counties are represented across the whole list, showing that there are great restaurants spread all over the UK.

A special mention must also go to this year’s highest riser, Kevin Tickle’s Heft in Cumbria, which blew us away this year and jumped 54 spots from 72 last year to 18 in 2025.
Nottinghamshire restaurant named the best in the UK.

In the UK, the number one spot for 2025 goes to Restaurant Sat Bains, where chef Sat Bains and his team deliver an exceptional dining experience.