Six of the best UK local dining hotspots worth sinking your teeth into
Stephen Emms dishes up the latest from the UK food and drink scene, rounding up some of the best independent eateries
By Stephen Emms
Stephen Emms has spent years writing food and travel columns across the British national press, serving up advice on restaurant hotspots and the best bites worth your pennies. In this new regular column for Attitude, Emms invites readers to pull up a chair as he charts his favourite UK dining haunts.
Back in the 2000s, as a cocky twentysomething, I made it my mission to eat regularly at the then-prized Covent Garden celebrity haunt The Ivy. At that time, of course, it wasn’t a chain. It was famously booked up months in advance – befriending the manager was the only way to secure a table. But once in, you’d be privy to the dining antics of the stars of the day – say, Hugh Grant, Noel Gallagher, or a Spice Girl or two. And there was not a mobile phone in sight.
By the late 2000s, as I started to write about restaurants for Time Out and other titles, my appetite for The Ivy waned. This coincided with a trio of disparate Soho openings which arguably shaped today’s wider food scene: counter tapas bar Barrafina, Russell Norman’s Venetian snack joint Polpo, and burger pioneers MEATliquor, which opened behind Oxford Street in 2011. At the latter, I first experienced those yawning queues that are now the norm.
Fast-forward to 2026, and it’s a thrill to see how chaotic and multi-layered the independent food scene is across the UK. City centres aside, the buzzword in this challenging time for hospitality is now “neighbourhood”, and, after two decades of writing about food, drink and travel, it’s the local haunts that I like to celebrate – those that are popping up in areas that once barely had a functioning overground station. Across the country, it’s a similar picture, with some of the best young chefs cooking in former industrial wastelands like Ancoats in Manchester, or side-street pop-ups and street-food markets in once-derelict buildings.
To kick things off, here are six neighbourhood dining hotspots – from Brighton to Belfast.
Local haunts
Manchester: Erst
On my last visit to this stylish Ancoats dining room, I got lucky without a booking on a Friday lunchtime. I feasted on steak tartare and beetroot with ajo blanco and green chilli. It’s just bagged a Michelin Bib Gourmand.
Brighton: Halisco
Preston Street, towards Hove, is one of my favourite foodie thoroughfares in the city. Mexican joint Halisco is a standout for tacos, such as pulled pork quesadilla with pickled cucumber and crispy oyster mushrooms with garlic mayo.
Belfast: EDO
This innovative tapas bar is run by steely Great British Menu alumnus Lottie Noren: sit at the counter, amid the heat of the kitchen, for superior plates of langoustine fritters, scallop ceviche or hanger steak.
Epping Forest: The Oyster Shack
Deep in Essex, this rustic seafood shack, a super-popular local haunt, has acquired pilgrimage status. Apart from oysters, order sardines, tiger prawns and the classic bacon and scallop roll.
Glasgow: Lobo
I’m a huge fan of Southside neighbourhood Strathbungo, where the tiny Lobo serves up a Mediterranean menu with the emphasis on elevated vegetable dishes like celeriac with pickled walnut and cavolo nero, or charred hispi with black lime.
Deal, Kent: Blue Pelican
Overlooking Deal’s shingle beach and brutalist pier, this elegant, Japanese-inspired restaurant is run by the owners of nearby boutique hotel The Rose. Tuck into oozy crab croquettes, halibut teriyaki and blistered prawns in beef fat butter.
This is a feature appearing in the May/June 2026 issue of Attitude magazine. Subscribe below.