The Sportsman Kent named Restaurant of the Year by the Good Food Guide 2024

The Sportsman in Seasalter, Kent, is The Good Food Guide Restaurant of the Year 2024 while L’Enclume, Ynyshir and Moor Hall retain the ‘World Class’ rating.

As well as being awarded Restaurant of the Year, The Sportsman also moved into the highly selective group of World Class-rated restaurants. The Guide highlighted its assured originality and impressive longevity: not only has it been in business for 25 years, head chef Dan Flavell has been working alongside Stephen Harris for the past 23 of them.

“It’s still hard to book, it’s astoundingly good value, and it’s as relevant today as when it was the new hot ticket,” said Elizabeth Carter. “This restaurant is rock solid. They’ve never been out of touch with the local food movement. They’re in touch with their customers. They’ve got a take-us-or-leave-us attitude, which is not irreverent, it’s just ‘this is what we do’.”

Every restaurant is comprehensively inspected by co-editors Elizabeth Carter and Chloë Hamilton and their team of 30 anonymous inspectors, with Good Food Guide readers sending tip offs when promising cooking and hospitality emerges from the most remote or unlikely places.

The full list of winnerS:

WORLD CLASS-RATED

L’Enclume, Cumbria
Moor Hall, Lancashire
The Sportsman, Kent - NEW
Ynyshir, Mid Wales

EXCEPTIONAL-RATED RESTAURANTS

Meadowsweet, Norfolk
Old Stamp House, Cumbria
Osip, Somerset
Outlaw's New Road, Cornwall
Pine, Northumbria
Pollen Street Social, London
Restaurant 22, Cambridge
Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, London
Solstice by Kenny Atkinson, Newcastle
Sosban & The Old Butcher's, Isle of Anglesey
Spring, London
The Glenturret Lalique Restaurant, Scotland
The White Swan, Lancashire
Woven by Adam Smith, Berkshire

BEST FRONT ROW SEAT

The Sea, The Sea Chef’s Table, London

DRINKS LIST OF THE YEAR

Furna, Brighton

BEST FARM TO TABLE RESTAURANT

Our Farm, Cumbria

MOST EXCITING FOOD DESTINATION

Helmsley & the Howardian Hills, North Yorkshire

CHEF TO WATCH

James Carn, Lark, Suffolk

BEST NEW RESTAURANT

Mountain, London

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR

The Sportsman, Kent

Good Food Guide 2024 — Elizabeth Carter, Adam Hyman, Tommy Banks, Ellie Hook and Chloe Hamilton

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