The pub was named the ‘best restaurant in the world’ in 2017 by users of TripAdvisor, beating off stiff competition from Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons restaurant in Great Milton, Oxfordshire, which came in second, and former top-listed Restaurante Martín Berasategui in Lasarte-Oria, north-east Spain.
The Black Swan is also on the 2019 Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs list at number 12, where it was hailed as “the vision of a country gastropub”.
Top restaurant
Travellers’ Choice favourite fine-dining restaurants UK:
- Adam’s, Birmingham, West Midlands
- The Black Swan at Oldstead, North Yorkshire
- L’Enclume, Cartmel, Cumbria
- Paul Ainsworth at No. 6, Padstow, Cornwall
- Aizle, Edinburgh
- Maison Bleue Restaurant, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
- The Old Stamp House Restaurant, Ambleside, Cumbria
- Alyn Williams at the Westbury, Mayfair, west London
- Castle Terrace Restaurant, Edinburgh
- Restaurant Sat Bains, Nottingham
Tommy Banks, who runs the pub with his brother James, unveiled a second site in York in 2018 called Roots.
The current number one restaurant in the world was named as TRB Hutong in Beijing, China. The venue is housed within a 600-year-old temple and serves contemporary European cuisine with a focus on French cooking. Diners can expect to see dishes such as lobster and poached scallops on the menu.
Awards’ criteria
Travellers’ Choice favourite fine-dining restaurants Europe:
- Epicure, Paris, France
- Ristorante Villa Crespi, Orta San Giulio, Italy
- The Jane, Antwerp, Belgium
- Le Brouillarta, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France
- El Celler de Can Roca, Girona, Spain
- Adam’s, Birmingham, United Kingdom
- Martin Berasategui, Lasarte, Spain
- Disfrutar, Barcelona, Spain
- The Black Swan at Oldstead, Oldstead, United Kingdom
- Restaurant 360, Dubrovnik, Croatia
The Travellers’ Choice Awards for Restaurants honours travellers’ favourite dining establishments worldwide. Based on a year of TripAdvisor reviews, the restaurants awarded were consistently given high ratings and praise from diners across the globe.
Award winners were determined by factoring in the quantity and quality of reviews, gathered over a 12-month period.
