Newcastle’s Michelin tables, and what to order at each

The plate that sums up eating out in Newcastle right now might be haggis on toast with a fried duck egg and HP Sauce, £16 at a Bib Gourmand pub on the Quayside. The city has two Michelin stars, both on the same short stretch of riverbank, and a ring of smaller rooms in Jesmond, Heaton, Gosforth and the Ouseburn that the inspectors also list. This is the whole set, with the order for each.

How we chose: every Newcastle restaurant in the current Michelin Guide, plus the city’s highest entry in the Good Food Guide’s 2026 Best Local Restaurants list.

The two stars

Solstice by Kenny Atkinson

Fourteen people sit at the counter on Side for a no-choice menu of up to 19 courses, and the chefs bring each plate over and talk you through it. The inspectors single out scallops, pigeon and “exquisitely constructed desserts”, and the 2026 National Restaurant Awards placed it 42nd in Britain. Book it for an occasion, because there is nothing else on offer and it costs £175 a head.

5-7 Side, Quayside · tasting menu £175 · Wed–Sat · book

House of Tides

Kenny and Abbie Atkinson’s other restaurant fills a former merchant’s house round the corner on The Close, with flagged floors and cast-iron pillars downstairs and sloping floors and carved beams above. The way in is the £65 prix fixe: Lemon Sole with Alsace bacon duxelle, then Creedy Carver duck with blood peach and macadamia, then pineapple parfait. The full tasting menu is £125 at dinner and £95 at lunch. The prix fixe isn’t served at Saturday dinner.

28-30 The Close, Quayside · prix fixe £65 · Thu–Sun · book

The Bib Gourmand

The Broad Chare

A converted warehouse off the Quayside, opened in 2011 as a partnership between Terry Laybourne’s 21 Hospitality and Live Theatre, has held a Bib Gourmand every year since. The inspectors name two dishes, and both are on the October menu: haggis on toast with a fried duck egg, and grilled calves liver with bacon, sage and crispy onions at £27. Order the haggis. Eat downstairs in the bar if you can’t get a table in the dining room upstairs.

25 Broad Chare, Quayside · haggis on toast £16 · no dinner Sun · book upstairs, walk in to the bar

Six more the inspectors list

21

The same group’s brasserie in Trinity Gardens is red and black, with a zinc-topped bar and a long gin list. The inspectors call the cooking “unfussy, eminently satisfying dishes you want to eat again and again”. Start with the Cheddar cheese and spinach soufflé at £15.50. Calves liver with bacon and crispy onions is here too, at £34.50, a short walk and £7.50 from the pub version.

Trinity Gardens, Quayside · soufflé £15.50 · closed Mon · book

Lovage

Up in Jesmond, Kleo Tabaku cooks Mediterranean food that the inspectors praise for “a welcome lack of fussiness”, and the olive oil on the table is grown and pressed by the restaurant itself. Order the Whitby lobster taglierini in lobster bisque at £26, or put a night aside for the £100 tasting menu.

St George’s Terrace, Jesmond · lobster taglierini £26 · closed Mon–Wed · book

Osters

Lovage’s team opened this seafood room on Gosforth High Street, and it is the cheapest table here: the inspectors give it a single £ sign. Start with oysters, which come several ways. The set menu is £25 for two courses or £30 for three, with Osters fish pie under a herb crust among the mains.

High Street, Gosforth · set menu from £25 · closed Mon–Tue · book

Rebel

Lindsay Rushton, who cooked at House of Tides, runs this narrow room in Heaton with tree-trunk tables and a counter facing the kitchen. September’s seven courses cost £65 and run from mackerel with XO and kohlrabi to Yorkshire lamb with romesco. The Good Food Guide likened one spring plate, Jersey Royals with onion jam, whipped cod’s roe and pecorino, to “a single, magnificent cheese and onion crisp”. Saturday lunch is three courses for £35.

Heaton Park Road, Heaton · seven courses £65 · Wed–Sat · book

Cook House

Anna Hedworth started Cook House in the Ouseburn, and the Financial Times made it its Restaurant of the Year in 2019. The inspectors point to tempura cauliflower and seeded chicken schnitzel. On Sundays the kitchen roasts whole chickens for sharing, and you have to ask in advance if you want one.

Foundry Lane, Ouseburn · dinner mains £25–£29 · Wed–Sun · book, and reserve a Sunday chicken

Long Friday

The Good Food Guide ranked Long Friday 29th of the UK’s 100 best local restaurants for 2026, after naming it the region’s best local in 2025, and called it “a small-plates dream ticket for Jesmond locals”. The guide’s reviewers mention hake in bloody mary butter and an Old Spot pork chop with whisky and gochujang sauce. It isn’t in the Michelin Guide, which is why it is last here. Go with three or four people and order most of the list.

Brentwood Avenue, Jesmond · small plates · book

Checked October 2026.