Get ready for Top 50 Gastropubs 2017

Gastropubs across the country have reaped a record amount of recognition after being honoured in the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs 2016 list and awards in January.

Press coverage of the event, which ranks the UK’s top 50 food pubs and recognises businesses in a series of awards, extended from large national titles to local papers and glossy magazines.

Food and drink editor at The Morning Advertiser (MA) Nicholas Robinson says: “It’s been a very busy year since we announced the list and the award winners in January and we’ve had so much positive feedback from the nation’s greatest food pubs as a result.

“It’s amazing how much interest from newspapers and magazines up and down the country there is in what this lively and creative segment of the trade is doing, which makes it all the more important for gastropubs to enter the awards again this year.”

Next year’s event​

Preparations for next year’s event, which will be held at Anglian Country Inns’ the Hermitage Road bar and restaurant on 30 January, are under way.

MA editor Ed Bedington says: “This event is certainly a jewel in the crown. It’s rare the gastropub segment is the focus of national media attention and recognised for the pioneering work the chefs and teams in these pubs do.

“It was great to see Michelin-starred Seasalter, Kent, pub the Sportsman, run by Stephen Harris, take the title of top gastropub in the country for the second year in a row in January and I’m eager to see who will take the title next year.”

Harris took the spot from Tom Kerridge, who retired his Hand & Flowers pub from the list after winning three years in a row, for the first time in 2015.

Former awards presenter Kerridge acclaimed Harris as “one of the most talented chefs in the country”.

Hundreds of experts​

Hundreds of pub and food experts are already being polled by the MA to find the Top 50 Gastropubs of 2017. Voters include prominent operators; food writers; catering development managers and executives; celebrity and top industry chefs; as well as pub and hospitality company bosses.

Voting is under way and will close on 28 October. If you would like to become a member of the regional voting academy, then please see website details below.

The 2016 list was also a record year for gastropubs from the north of England, with 11 rightly earning a spot as a result of the hard work regional chefs in the likes of Newcastle, Lancashire and Yorkshire are doing to put their areas on the food map.

Meanwhile, the ever-popular Top 50 Gastropubs awards, which high-quality food-led pubs enter themselves into, are back by popular demand.

This year there will be two entered awards (which means pubs be put forward by their licensees), and they are the Newcomer award and the Front-of-House Team of the Year award. Details of how to enter are on the next page.