29 Best Restaurants in England

One of only three three-Michelin-starred restaurants in the city, Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester achieves the pinnacle of classical French haute cuisine in a surprisingly fun, lively, and unstuffy salon. Diners feast on a blizzard of beautifully choreographed dishes, including classic rum baba with Chantilly cream, sliced open and served in a silver domed tureen. Slick service is off-the-scale outstanding, while the sommelier is a brilliantly charming expert on all things vino.

This sophisticated restaurant within one of Chester's most resplendent hotels is a real splurge of an experience, but completely worth it. The tasting menu, which features delicious British ingredients such as native lobster with Isle of Wight tomatoes or Scottish mussels will delight and surprise.

British restaurateur Keith McNally re-creates his famed New York–Parisian–style brasserie at this bustling corner spot off Covent Garden Piazza. The soaring grand café setting creates an enchanting white-tablecloth backdrop to enjoy the classic French brasserie menu, including dishes like duck and beef pie, moules marinière (mussels with cream and white wine), and ox cheek bourguignon (stew). Treat yourself to rock oysters and champagne while perusing the nearly all-French wine list, which carries everything from Chablis to Charmes-Chambertin, before polishing off a pile of profiteroles and chocolate sauce for dessert.

Enjoy the great value, prix-fixe menus of classic French dishes at Piccadilly's ever-bustling subterranean Parisian-style brasserie. Dripping with Beaux-Arts gilt mirrors and monumental marble pillars, you can enjoy satisfying French standards like steak haché, choucroute, Niçoise salad, and crème brûleé. Old-school waiters in dapper black uniforms glide across the vast parquet dining room floor, while the attached art deco-style Bar Américain cocktail lounge and late-night live cabaret provide wonderfully suave post-dinner shows.

Flavorful, inventive dishes elevate this hipster casual joint to the top rank of London's midrange gastro titans. With a focus on in-house curing, pickling, smoked meats, and heritage vegetables, expect a cavalcade of unlikely combinations and classic gastronomy specialties. The food is modern European, but with influences drawn from around the world—their beautifully delicate Cornish plaice with bok choy, trout roe, and Tosazu butter are a prime example.

Ask for a table in the dreamy, white blossom–filled conservatory at this warm, cozy, and seriously romantic Provençal country-style inn off Covent Garden. Once inside, you'll be won over by the old-fashioned but refined French cuisine. Options include Loire Valley rabbit ballotine, poached wild turbot, and Charolais beef cheeks with fine French beans. Lunch specials and pre-and post-theater prix fixe menus are an affordable way to experience the cuisine and celebratory atmosphere. With its warren of candlelit, oak-paneled rooms and open fires, Clos Maggiore never fails to enchant.

This excellent "restaurant with rooms" on the medieval Market Square takes deeply traditional flavors of the British countryside and updates them with a slight French twist. Served in an elegant, whitewashed dining room, the five-course, fixed-price dinner menus use a reassuring amount of local and regional ingredients. The selection might include breast of pigeon with caramelized endive or halibut with ginger foam and parsley sauce. The five spacious guest rooms have sloping floors, beamed ceilings, well-appointed bathrooms, and antique furnishings.

One of the original gastronomy-focused hotels, Le Manoir was opened in 1984 by chef Raymond Blanc, whose culinary talents have earned the hotel's restaurant two Michelin stars—now held for an incredible 38 years and running. Decide from among such innovative French creations as spiced cauliflower velouté with langoustines, beef fillet with braised Jacob's ladder, or Dover sole with brown butter and rosemary. Or you can try one of the fixed-price menus starting from £229; the six-course set-price lunch (£190) is marginally easier on the wallet. There is a separate vegetarian menu as well. With more than 1,000 wines in stock, mostly French, you'll find the perfect glass to accompany your meal. You need to book up to three months ahead in summer. Elegant guest rooms are available, but at upwards of £800 in summer for even a standard double, you could just as well get a taxi back to almost anywhere south of Scotland. The pretty town of Great Milton is 7 miles southeast of Oxford.

This stylish French restaurant, with the same owners as the Great House in nearby Lavenham, specializes in locally caught seafood. Typical choices include king scallops with squid ink and saddle of lamb with parsley and mushroom stuffing. Leave room for dessert, such as the indulgent Opera gateau, a rich chocolate and almond pudding. The three-course £39.95 lunch offers good value.

Beside the River Cam on the edge of Midsummer Common, this gray-brick 19th-century villa holds a two–Michelin star restaurant set in a comfortable conservatory. Fixed-price menus for lunch and dinner (with five to eight courses) present innovative dishes that place a focus on seasonal, often local, ingredients. Choices might include freshwater prawn with gazpacho mousse or sauteed duck liver and conte cheese. Service is both informal and informative. If you don't want to pay the eye-watering cost of dinner here, come for lunch, which is around half the price at £150 per person.

Fans of top French food and fine wine flock to this gorgeous wood-paneled Georgian town house for masterful dishes like roast chicken with morel mushrooms and creamy vin jaune sauce alongside a marvelous 28-page French-focused wine list. Dark oak floors, soft brass lights, and cut-crystal glass decanters help guests bliss out on one of London's finest and surprisingly most accessible wine lists, with numerous rare gems available by the glass.

This bright and modern restaurant with rooms housed in a gleaming Georgian villa is known for its French-influenced cuisine with resolutely British ingredients. The assured and welcoming service makes it easy to savor specialties such as Aberdeenshire beef bavette and cheek or quail with elderberries and parsley, which have secured its Michelin star since 1999. A mile south of the city center, it's an excellent dining choice and has won accolates for its plant-based approach to cooking, too.

The ultimate neighborhood restaurant in west London's wealthy Holland Park section draws diners with its brilliant-but-understated French and Mediterranean classics, relaxed service, and interesting, mainly French wines. Treat yourself to bouillabaisse Provençale or ox cheek bourguignon with button mushrooms and pearl onions. With only 36 seats and a teeny bar, this is an intimate affair, which is highlighted by the white paper tablecloths and bentwood chairs. Service is friendly but not overly familiar, while wines are grower, boutique, or biodynamic. Traditional roasts served on Sundays.

Once the home of Victorian novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, this mid-17th-century tile-hung house is now an elegant restaurant known for creative French cuisine, with à la carte dishes like roast stone bass with artichoke sauce and confit pork belly with blue cheese ravioli. A starter, main (plus side), and dessert will easily set you back £65, so if you're feeling hungry, it's probably best to just opt for the prix fixe, seven-course "Chef's Tasting Menu" (£78 per person, plus £55 for wine pairing).

Striking black-and-white photos of legendary regulars like artists Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud beam down at this disarmingly charming old-school hangout that was the former unofficial London headquarters for the Free French in exile during World War II. Set on the first floor of the famous pub of the same name and run by a former cabaret artist, you can sip Ricard pastis or bargains from the all-French wine list before embracing superb French bistro classics like salt cod beignets, calves brain with brown butter, or braised navarin of lamb with cheesy aligot mashed potato.

French tapas may sound sacrilegious, but Gallic gem Blanchette hits the spot at this family-run hipster bistro where jazzy French sounds complement the charming bare-brick and oak table candlelit interior. Visually feast on the eclectic Paris flea market bric-a-brac and then order a host of smaller plates to share, like the crispy frogs' legs and truffle saucisson (sausage) or baked scallops with Café de Paris sauce. The cramped tables can be a touch intimate, but desserts like chocolate tart, tonka bean syrup, and macerated cherries are a fitting Left Bank finale.

Raymond Blanc's sophisticated brasserie in the Jericho neighborhood is the more affordable chain restaurant cousin of Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons in Great Milton. The changing menu always lists a good selection of steaks and innovative adaptations of bourgeois French fare, sometimes with Mediterranean or Asian influences. Try the confit duck or the rainbow beetroot salad. In a happy concession to more Anglo-Saxon tastes, they also do a fantastic traditional British roast on Sunday.

Tucked away down a pedestrianized back street, this casual French bistro is a favorite haunt for politicians based in and around the nearby Palace of Westminster. Open all day, one can only imagine the political intrigues being discussed over Gallic classics such as coq au vin or snails in garlic butter, all washed down with wines from the surprisingly extensive list.

The enticing prix-fixe lunch menu attracts diners to this award-winning French restaurant, which is renowned for its signature dishes like onglet steak with tarragon and sea bass with clams and samphire. Chez Dominique is also a great place to stop for afternoon tea or coffee after a walk by nearby Pulteney Weir.

The kind of smooth-running, welcoming all-day brasserie that is difficult to find in Paris these days, Colbert offers well-prepared bistro favorites like croque monsieur, escargot, and steak haché, along with bigger plates like pan-roasted sea trout with samphire and seaweed and cider-braised pork cheeks. The service is professional but friendly and the atmosphere is stylish but comfortable. Although a neighborhood favorite, it's a swanky neighborhood which is reflected in the prices, but a prix-fixe menu (two courses fir £24.75 and three courses for £29.95) offers good value.

With three popular restaurants in Paris, star French chef Grégory Marchand brings his highly colorful and daring dishes to London at this sleek eatery not far from the historic Covent Garden Piazza. Everyone loves the effortlessly ebullient offerings like stone bass, bisque, and borlotti beans or Welsh lamb with sweet corn three ways, all served in a bustling and modern brasserie setting.

The city's wealthy flock to French virtuoso Hélène Darroze's restaurant at The Connaught for her dazzling regional French haute cuisine, served up in a stylish Edwardian wood-paneled dining salon. Taking inspiration from the Les Landes region in southwestern France, Darroze sallies forth with a procession of magnificent dishes like lobster with carrot, coriander, and tandoori spices. A beautiful venison Wellington is served with hispi cabbage and quince.

With the legend Tous Célèbres Ici ("All Famous Here") boldly etched on the front doors, the delightful LPM boasts an impressively well-sourced and balanced French Mediterranean, Ligurian, and Provençal menu based on the relaxed Riviera style of the original La Petite Maison in Nice. Try the soft Burrata cheese with a sweet Datterini tomato–and–basil spread or aromatic baked turbot with artichokes, chorizo, five spices, and white wine sauce. Dishes come to the table as soon as they're ready, and the très jolie and informal waitstaff make for a convivial rosé party vibe.

There's always a satisfied hum in the air at this large, modern, and bustling bistro, part of a small chain, that’s close to the river. It’s French and the menu makes that known; olives from Provence, sausage from the Beaujolais region, pâtés, mussels in a Roquefort sauce, beef bourguignon, and rustic French cheeses all appear. Croque monsieur (toasted ham and cheese sandwich) is a popular lunchtime dish. Vegetarians and kids are well catered for, and the service is amicable and attentive.

This long-standing favorite specializes in French haute cuisine done right, with an emphasis on luxurious dishes like caviar, oysters, lobster, and Dover sole (served meunière) along with bistro classics like rabbit with mustard and steak frites. Standards, like the prices, remain high, and the swanky dining room takes inspiration from the art deco liner SS Normandie. Weather permitting, grab a table on the terrace to make the most of the wonderful views of the Thames, Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London. A weekday lunch/early-bird dinner set menu (two courses for £30; three courses for £35) lets you sample this expense-account favorite with minimal damage to your wallet.

Discreet and intimate, this restaurant is a showcase for the French-inspired cuisine of chef Michael Macdonald, who, as the restaurant's name implies, holds vanilla in high esteem. The fixed-price menu borrows the flavor of a French bistro and shakes it up a bit, so you might have filet mignon with polenta or something more adventurous, such as fennel escabeche with mackerel and vanilla. The three-course lunch menu is a fantastic bargain at £25, and the seven-course menu gourmand for £60 is a tour de force.

Bringing the outside in, this café and restaurant is in the Wallace Collection's glass-roofed courtyard. It's open (daily 10–4:30) for breakfast, lunch, and afternoon tea, and for dinner on Friday and Saturday evenings (last seating is at 9:30 pm). The menu includes lamb rump, pan-roasted lemon sole, and other tasty offerings. If you don't want to strain your budget too much, you can just linger over coffee in the gorgeous surroundings.