Estrella Damm National Restaurant Awards: Restaurateur of the Year shortlist
Aktar Islam, Opheem
Aktar Islam’s Aktar at Home meal kit delivery service has been a smash hit and has led by example, with the chef restaurateur extending the service beyond lockdown as a result. His highly acclaimed restaurant Opheem is the only UK Indian restaurant outside London to hold a Michelin star.
Michael Caines, Michael Caines Collection
The Lympstone Manor owner has been busy this past year or so with a string of new openings, including taking on the former Rick Stein Restaurant in Porthleven, Cornwall, and opening Mickeys Beach Bar and Restaurant, Café Patisserie Glacerie at Cornish beach front restaurant The Cove at Maenporth.
A new food, drink and music festival is coming to the Cornish coast this summer. The Travelling Feast festival is the brainchild and creation of Cornwall-based Chef and Restaurateur, Paul Ainsworth, and will be stopping off at some of the most idyllic locations across Cornwall from August 6 - 20. Staycations will be more popular than ever this summer and Paul Ainsworth’s Travelling Feast is hoping to provide the perfect solution for a unique camping festival experience. Headliners include Tom Kerridge’s Humble Pie Truck, Niall Keating’s Paradise Carriage, John Hooker’s Cornish Arms Airstream and James Martin’s Ice Cream Airstream as well as Paul’s very own Travelling Feast food truck.
Great British Chefs
âI thought it was the dish that hit the brief most and I knew if I could get it right it would stand a chance,â he says. âI think it just had a really strong message.â Inspired by the creation of the internet and how important itâs been for the restaurant industry, particularly over the past year, the dish is a playful take on a classic takeaway. Featuring guinea fowl done multiple ways, miso-fried wings, barbecued maitake mushrooms, a confit egg yolk-filled potato nest and an array of condiments, the dish was presented in wooden delivery boxes.
Dinner by Heston Blumenthal s sumptuous terrace
Unless you were speed-dialling your favourite restaurants the second that the roadmap to recovery was announced in February, you may be thinking that the chance of securing an outside table in the UK is now less likely than a spring heatwave.
The River Café, for instance, is fully booked until August; there are no dinner reservations at Michelin-starred Hambleton Hall, and its terrace overlooking Rutland Water, until September.
Which is not to say that an alfresco table at one of Britain’s best restaurants isn’t out of the question this side of the summer solstice. There are Michelin-starred terraces reserved for walk-ins if you’re feeling spontaneous, while many of the restaurants that delayed their reopening until 17 May still have some alfresco tables available. Some of the finest kitchens in the country, meanwhile, save the outside seating for their more casual spin-offs.
The Telegraph s top 25 restaurants for dining indoors this summer
There’s no substitute for the buzz of a restaurant dining room, and these are the favourites we ll be racing to visit once more
17 May 2021 • 12:20pm
Telegraph writers and chefs reveal the top restaurants they can t wait to visit now they ve reopened
Credit: Magdelen Arms; Brasserie Zédel; London Photography Company; Milo Brown
Right, where were we? Can you remind me? Ah, yes – restaurants! I remember them. Or rather, I remember what they used to be. Whether it was a big, blousy room putting on a seamless show even as it allowed the diners to take centre stage, or a self-consciously curated little space in which the punters’ intimacy with the process was essentially what made the food enjoyable, I remember the way that good (and, indeed, less good) restaurants used to make me feel: thoroughly, in-the-moment alive. Which feels like a lifetime ago, does it not?