Luxury lunch at the North's most serious tasting-menu restaurants

The consensus

Newcastle-born chef Kenny Atkinson opened House of Tides in a restored Grade I-listed 16th-century merchant's townhouse on the Quayside, and it has held its Michelin star for twelve consecutive years since first winning it in 2016, alongside four AA Rosettes and a National Restaurant Awards top-20 placing. The building itself does real work for the experience — whitewashed walls, exposed wooden pillars and a ground-floor drinks room before the main dining room upstairs — and the cooking is described as classically grounded but far from boring, built around British ingredients through set lunch and dinner tasting menus served Wednesday to Saturday. The full Tasting menu runs £125 at dinner or £95 at lunch, with a shorter three-course Prix Fixe at £65 on Friday and Saturday lunchtimes only — a genuine lunch discount, not a token one, though prices here have risen noticeably even in the past few weeks and are worth checking directly before booking. It's Newcastle's only Michelin-starred restaurant, and reviews are strongly positive on the cooking itself, though at least one gift voucher review raised frustration over how a redemption was handled — worth confirming voucher terms before buying as a gift.

Sourced from National Restaurant Awards, NewcastleGateshead — how we rate venues

The consensus

Chef Tom Barnes — previously at Simon Rogan's three-Michelin-starred L'Enclume and at Copenhagen's Geranium — opened Skof in Manchester's NOMA district in May 2024, and it earned the city's second-ever Michelin star in February 2025, alongside Best New Restaurant at the Good Food Guide Awards. The format is genuinely built around the kitchen: rather than a handful of premium counter seats, every table is rotated through the pass during the meal to eat a course while watching Barnes cook, which spreads the "chef's table" moment across the whole room rather than gatekeeping it. Tasting menus are offered at two lengths, with dinner running from around £130 up to £175 for the longest version, a shorter four-course Sample Lunch Menu at £55 served Thursday to Saturday lunchtimes, and wine pairings from £80 (non-alcoholic from £40) — prices have crept up over the past few months, so it's worth confirming the current menu before booking. A detailed review praised the tiramisu as "almost certainly the best" the reviewer had tasted and called the starters exceptional, while flagging one potato-and-cuttlefish course as the meal's weak point — a rare specific miss in an otherwise glowing write-up.

Sourced from Salty Plums, Time Out Manchester

The consensus

Michael Wignall took over this 15th-century Yorkshire Dales inn — reputedly Britain's oldest gastropub — in 2018 and won a Michelin star within his first year, retaining it every year since, including the 2026 guide, alongside four AA Rosettes. The kitchen's sauce work and a cheese board one detailed review called "the best I have experienced" draw repeat visits, and daytime dining is built as three genuinely distinct menus rather than a cut-down dinner: a five-course tasting lunch, a rotating "Taste of the Season" lunch (lunch-only, must be booked in advance), and a separate Sunday lunch — real separation from the evening's ten-course tasting menu, not just a shorter version of it. At least one thorough review found a tasting-menu course "lacked any wow factor" and was caught out by a £35 optional wagyu supplement, worth knowing before you book.

Sourced from Great British Chefs, Savour Magazine

The consensus

Simon Rogan opened Rogan & Co as the more relaxed sibling to his three-Michelin-starred L'Enclume a few doors down in Cartmel, and it has held its own Michelin star since 2018, using produce from Rogan's own Our Farm in the Cartmel Valley. The cottage dining room trades L'Enclume's theatre for a genuinely casual feel — one review noted you could mistake it for "a refined tea shop" if you didn't know the pedigree. The real draw for a lunch visit is the three-course set menu at £49, served Wednesday to Saturday, independently rated as one of the best-value Michelin experiences in the country and a fraction of L'Enclume's £265 tasting menu. Reviews are strongly positive overall (4.3 out of 5 across nearly 1,600 TripAdvisor reviews), though value and atmosphere scores trail the food score slightly, and some diners flag smaller portion sizes for the price.

Sourced from The Manc, TripAdvisor