Michelin Guide for the UK & Ireland 2008

The new Michelin guide fails to promote any restaurants to three-star status for the fourth consecutive year in a disappointing set of awards.

Today's new Michelin guide for Great Britain and Ireland failed to promote and restaurants to three-star status for the fourth consecutive year.

The guide also does not promote any establishments to two-star rankings in what industry insiders acknowledge as a disappointing set of awards.

There was some good news. Fifteen restaurants gained their first Michelin star, ensuring the total number of establishments holding stars in Great Britain and Ireland held firm at 2007`s count of 122.

High-profile restaurants such as Anthony Demetre and Will Smith’s second venue Wild Honey and Gary Rhodes’ latest venture Rhodes W1 in London are among those to gain their first star, as was Nathan Outlaw in Cornwall, which was also listed as a rising two-star establishment.

All three of the three-starred restaurants have maintained their positions this year, but the two-Michelin-starred Hibiscus in London lost one of its stars in the aftermath of its relocation from Ludlow, Shropshire, to London last autumn. It now resides in the rising two-star category.

Five restaurants were tipped as one-star establishments of the future and three as rising two-stars.

In total, 15 restaurants lost a Michelin star, while there are 33 new Bib Gourmand establishments in the guide. 

New one star restaurants:

Scotland

* Ballachulish House, Ballachulish, Highland

* Champany Inn, Linlithglow, West Lothian

England

* The Goose, Britwell Salome, Oxon

* West Stoke House, Chichester/West Stoke, West Sussex

* Apicius, Cranbrook, Kent

* Nathan Outlaw, Fowey, Cornwall

* Tean, Scilly Isle/St Martin’s, Cornwall

* The Sportsman, Whitstable/Seasalter, Kent

London

* La Trompette, Chiswick

* Rhodes W1 (Restaurant), Marylebone

* Quilon, Victoria

* Hibiscus, Mayfair

* Wild Honey, Mayfair

Republic of Ireland

* Mint, Ranelagh, Dublin

* Bon App™tit, Malahide, Dublin

 

Rising One Stars

England

* The Wheatsheaf, Bath/Combe Hay, Bath & North East Somerset

* Combe House, Honiton/Gittisham, Devon

* The Nut Tree, Murcott, Oxon

* Auberge du Lac, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire

London

* Galvin at Windows, Mayfair

 

Rising Two Stars

* Hibiscus, Mayfair, London

* Tom Aikens, Chelsea, London

* Nathan Outlaw, Fowey, Cornwall

 

Deletions

England

* Jessica’s Birmingham, West Midlands

* The Devonshire Arms Country House, Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire

* The Hare, Hungerford, Berkshire

* Ripley’s, Padstow, Cornwall

* The Greyhound, Stockbridge, Hampshire

* Waldo’s (at Cliveden), Taplow, Berkshire

* The Castle, Taunton, Somerset

* The Trouble House, Tetbury, Gloucestershire

* The George, Yarmouth, Isle of Wight

* Gilpin Lodge, Windermere, Cumbria

* Winteringham Fields, Winteringham, Humberside

* Hibiscus, Ludlow, Shropshire

London

* Angela Hartnett at Connaught, Mayfair

* Orrery, Marylebone

* The Savoy Grill, Strand