Best make top dining guide

JOHN’S HOUSE IN MOUNTSORREL TOPS LIST FOR LEICESTERSHIRE

WE have some excellent restaurants here in Leicestershire - and nine of them have now been recognised as the county’s best.

The AA has just released The Restaurant Guide 2022, which aims to round up the very best of the UK and Ireland’s top dining destinations.

It features more than 1,700 restaurants which have been awarded Rosettes for culinary excellence by the AA’s professional inspectors.

Now in its 28th edition, The Restaurant Guide provides food lovers with breakdowns of restaurants by county, including a detailed description of each destination, information on latest chef changes, opening times and sample menu prices.

To assist those travelling to featured restaurants, the Guide also includes clear AA mapping of each region.

With the AA not releasing its annual guide in 2020 for the first time in 50 years, the publication returns with a blend of familiar favourites and more than 100 new restaurants than the previous edition.

In addition to restaurant listings, The Restaurant Guide 2022 includes interviews with chefs such as 26-year-old culinary prodigy Tom Booton (Dorchester Grill, London), Paul Leonard (Forest Side, Grasmere, Cumbria) and Nathan Outlaw (Outlaw’s New Road and Outlaw’s Fish Kitchen, Port Isaac, Cornwall).

Restaurants are awarded between one and five rosettes.

One rosette denotes restaurants achieving standards that stand out in their local area, featuring food prepared with care, understanding and skill, and good quality ingredients. The AA says the same expectations apply to hotel restaurants where guests should be able to eatin with confidence and a sense of anticipation.

Two rosettes are given to the best local restaurants which aim for and achieve higher standards, better consistency, greater precision apparent in the cooking and obvious attention to the selection of quality ingredients.

According to the AA, places with three rosettes are outstanding restaurants that achieve standards that demand national recognition well beyond their local area. The cooking will be underpinned by the selection and sympathetic treatment of the highest quality ingredients, and timing, seasoning and the judgement of flavour combinations will be consistently excellent. These virtues will tend to be supported by other elements such as intuitive service and a well-chosen wine list.

Places with four rosettes are among the top restaurants in the UK where the cooking demands national recognition. These will exhibit intense ambition, a passion for excellence, superb technical skills, remarkable consistency and an appreciation of culinary traditions combined with a passionate desire for further exploration and improvement.

Restaurants with five rosettes are described as the pinnacle, where the cooking compares with the best in the world.

They will have highly individual voices, exhibit breathtaking culinary skills and set the standards to which others aspire, yet few achieve.