Fine-Dining Restaurant of the Year: Great Food Club Awards 2020
Winner
The Hammer & Pincers, Wymeswold, Leicestershire
Finalists
The Jew’s House, Lincoln
Hambleton Hall, near Oakham, Rutland
Prévost, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire
Ascough’s, Market Harborough
The winner is The Hammer & Pincers in Wymeswold, Leicestershire. This restaurant has evolved into something special. The food hits all the right notes via a unique style of cooking that the kitchen here has made all its own. What you get is skilfully prepared, ingredient-led fine-dining imbued with the laid-back characteristics of great comfort food, and finished with a sprinkling of decadence and fun.
Dishes we’ve loved here include Rosary Ash goats’ cheese soufflé with allotment rhubarb and rose chutney; baked Alaska with ginger ice cream; hay-smoked celeriac carpaccio with braised venison shin and apple and lovage salad; and cumin & lime sugar grilled hake fillet with aloo tikki, summer bean and tamarind chutney and cauliflower pakora. The Saturday Grazing Menu is a delight from start to finish.
With a stylish, intimate interior to match the food, The Hammer & Pincers really is a treat.
Hambleton Hall is a jewel in the East Midlands’ dining crown. When the sun glitters on Rutland Water and you browse the menu from Hambleton’s stunning terrace, there are few better feelings of ‘dining expectation’ anywhere in Britain.
And Hambleton Hall’s food delivers on that promise, too. The cooking is exceptional and impressively consistent. If you want a traditional ‘fine dining’ experience, this handsome Rutland gem is incredibly hard to beat.
The Jew’s House in Lincoln is located in one of Britain’s oldest buildings. Everything about eating here feels neat and polished, from the delicious homemade bread you receive on arrival, to the top-quality service. Ingredients are lovingly chosen and put together with genuine skill. It provides a sophisticated, satisfying dining experience.
Stylish Prévost in Peterborough is a hidden-away restaurant that you should seek out. Lee Clarke and his team’s cooking is full of ambition, passion and vibrancy, and they choose their ingredients with care.
Ascough’s in Market Harborough straddles the boundary between casual and fine dining. Perennially popular, it does what it does well, offering good cooking and exceptional value for money.
