The Sportsman in Seasalter, Kent is awarded 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 

• Hide and Fox, Kent
• Hjem, Northumberland
• Harborne Kitchen, Birmingham
• Home at Penarth, Wales
• La Dame de Pic, London
• Lake Road Kitchen, Cumbria
• Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, Oxfordshire

• 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