Core by Clare Smyth is Good Food Guide's highest ever new entry

06-Sep-2018 - Last updated on 06-Sep-2018 at 09:17 GMT

Clare Smyth’s restaurant Core is the highest ever new entry in the Good Food Guide (GFG), which released its 2019 edition today.

The Notting Hill restaurant, which opened in August 2017, came third in the top 50 list with a perfect score of ten – the best the guide can award.

It is the highest new entry since the scoring system was introduced in 1998.

Just two other restaurants received a perfect ten – Restaurant Nathan Outlaw in Port Isaac, which topped the list for a second year running, and Simon Rogan’s L’Enclume in Cartmel, which came second.

“Clare Smyth has found a stage on which to show off her brilliantly artistic, deeply memorable creations,” says GFG editor Elizabeth Carter.

“With cooking that has come on in range and delicacy since we last tried it at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, she epitomises the genius required for a perfect ten.”

Outlaw’s eponymous Cornwall site was named the UK’s best restaurant and praised for its “refreshing lack of pomp” and “ingenious and simple” tasting menu.

Outlaw says the restaurant’s success was not just down to the food but his “professional and welcoming” front of house team.

“Learning that we had been placed in the top spot last year and retained a cooking score of 10/10 from the previous year was amazing, but this is just mind-blowing,” says Outlaw.

Gareth Ward from Ynyshir in Powys, Wales was named Chef of the Year, while Alex Bond from Nottingham’s Alchemilla took the title of Chef to Watch.

Andrew Wong’s A.Wong was awarded Restaurant of the Year and praised for “redefining the notion of Chinese cooking in London”.

The Best New Entry was Tom Brown’s Cornerstone, in Hackney, London.

The Top 50 Restaurants

(judged on cooking score, editor appraisal and reader feedback)

1 Restaurant Nathan Outlaw, Cornwall (10)
2 L’Enclume, Cumbria (10)
3 Core by Clare Smyth (10) New
4 Restaurant Sat Bains, Notts (9)
5 Ynyshir, Powys (9)
6 Claude Bosi at Bibendum, London (9)
7 Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, London (9)
8 Casamia, Bristol (9)
9 Pollen Street Social, London (9)
10 The Fat Duck, Berkshire (8)
11 Moor Hall, Lancashire (8)
12 Restaurant Andrew Fairlie, Tayside (8)
13 Adam Reid at The French, Manchester (8)
14 Bohemia, Jersey (8)
15 Le Champignon Sauvage, Glos (8)
16 Restaurant Story, London (8)
17 André Garrett at Cliveden, Berkshire (8)
18 The Ledbury, London (8)
19 Fraiche, Merseyside (8)
20 Roganic, London (8) New
21 Midsummer House, Cambridgeshire (8)
22 Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester, London (8)
23 The Peat Inn, Fife (8)
24 Marcus, London (8)
25 Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, London (8)
26 The Kitchin, Edinburgh (7)
27 Forest Side, Cumbria (7)
28 A. Wong, London (7) New
29 Orwells, Oxfordshire (7)
30 Sketch, Lecture Room & Library, London (7)
31 Hedone, London (7)
32 The Ritz, London (7)
33 Castle Terrace, Edinburgh (7)
34 The Three Chimneys, Isle of Skye (7)
35 The Waterside Inn, Berkshire (7)
36 Simon Radley at the Chester Grosvenor, Cheshire (7) New
37 Restaurant James Sommerin, Glamorgan (7)
38 Whatley Manor, The Dining Room, Wiltshire (7)
39 Matt Worswick at the Latymer, Surrey (7) New
40 The Raby Hunt, Co Durham (7)
41 The Greenhouse, London (7)
42 The Sportsman, Kent (7)
43 Restaurant Martin Wishart, Edinburgh (7)
44 Artichoke, Buckinghamshire (7)
45 Lake Road Kitchen, Cumbria (7) New
46 Adam’s, Birmingham (7)
47 Morston Hall, Norfolk (7) New
48 Le Gavroche, London (7)
49 The Whitebrook, Monmouthshire (7)
50 Hambleton Hall, Leicestershire and Rutland (7)