The best eco-friendly restaurants in the UK

Nest Farmhouse
Kings Lynn, Norfolk
On the back of their successes in London, the team behind Restaurant St Barts and Nest chose a restaurant with rooms nestled in a 1,000 acre farm near the North Norfolk coast as their next venture. Golden hues of light wood and large windows give the converted cattle shed an open, airy feel, with a view out across a reed-fringed pond taking in the broad skies of the farmland beyond. The connection to the surrounding nature is echoed in the menu with local heroes – Wells crab, Norfolk chicken and ​​ salad from West Lexham –playing a starring role in the thoughtful dishes. Sharing mains such as heritage breed Herdwick lamb, where the slow-braised rump is served with sweetbreads, greens, mint and capers, underline their dedication to whole-animal cookery and seasonality. Similarly, the drinks list includes local craft beers and ciders, and winemakers that prioritise good farming practices. Enjoy a digestif on the soft leather armchairs by the wood burner on the cosy side of the bar or down on the deck by the pond and let the serenity wash over you.

Osip
Bruton, Somerset
There is no menu at this quietly sophisticated farm-to-table restaurant in the heart of rural Somerset. Instead you put your faith in the chefs to take you on a multi-course journey driven by the produce cultivated on their own nearby plots of land. As the weather and season shifts so does the offering of exquisite dishes. A root vegetable tea with burnt garlic oil has a rich flavour akin to the best meat broth you’ve ever tasted with added complexity. Fallow deer is served with a beetroot mole and fermented blackcurrants, drawing the taste of each ingredient to new heights. To close, a Pump Street chocolate crémeux with leftover sourdough crumb and black sesame highlights the circularity of the cooking at Osip. There’s some incredible skill on display here but without any pageantry. The tasting menu and the more concise lunch menu are at the pricier end of the spectrum but for a special occasion you will not be disappointed. You will leave feeling nourished, comforted and inspired.

Moor Hall
Ormskirk, Lancashire
Moor Hall produces some of the most intricate and impressive food using an lot of garden produce from the kitchen’s five-acre grounds. Any ingredient not grown on site is sourced from West Lancashire where possible, with all meat coming from the North West and all fish from UK boats. Chef Mark Birchall’s menu features more courses than you’ll think it possible to eat, but will amaze you at every turn. Each dish with manages to somehow be prettier than the last,  and you can expect to enjoy cooking techniques you’ll never have tried before. For example, a black pudding puff served with pickled gooseberry, poached oysters in butter sauce, scallop served with fermented green tomato sauce, truffle and asparagus and a dessert of garden apples and gooseberry with birch sap and marigold (pictured). Each guest gets a tour of the kitchen as they make their way from their pre-meal drinks to their dining table, where you’ll be shown the local produce that’s being cooked with that day. The kitchen has zero-tolerance policy on single-use plastic for food storage, and the restaurant has a water filtration system which means they don’t need to stock bottled water.

Wilson’s
Bristol
With their own two-acre market garden 20 minutes away, partners Jan Ostle and Mary Wilson’s passion for seasonality and regenerative farming is what drives Wilson’s restaurant, with Mary growing and Jan cooking. The refined yet small Bristol restaurant is intrinsically linked to nature, with the majority of the vegetables, herbs and fruit coming from their garden and the rest sourced locally from small scale farmers that share their biodynamic ethos. Throughout the six-course set menu the freshest of fresh produce is crafted into delicate dishes that are alive with flavour. Their signature farm herb sorbet with burnt meringue changes throughout the year depending on what’s growing in the nearby fields but always packs a punch of verdant herbaceousness, and is topped by a beautifully mallowy, charred meringue. The most memorable palette cleanser we’ve tasted.

Honest Burgers
Nationwide
It stands to reason that a chain restaurant making significant changes will have more of an impact on the environment than one independent restaurant and Honest Burgers is doing just that. Their meat now comes from regenerative farms – ones which use methods that have as little impact on their soil as possible, reducing their carbon footprint. Farmers are paid fairly for a product that is raised to high standards, and Honest Burgers has committed to buying the whole cows directly from farmers, which means nothing is wasted. They processes around 70% of the cow at their own butchery to make Honest Burger patties, while other cuts are reserved for premium steaks – about 20% of the cow – and are sold to partners Turner and George and The Ethical Butcher. This is a major move as regeneratively farmed meat helps to improve the soil’s fertility for a sustainable future for meat production.

Gaucho
Nationwide
Perhaps not a name you’d have expected to see on this list, nationwide Argentinian steakhouse Gaucho have drastically refreshed their approach to sustainability over recent years, with a plan to work directly with their farmers in Argentina to reduce carbon emissions at source. Remaining carbon emissions are offset through reforestation projects as part of a partnership with  the charity Not For Sale, which works towards breaking the cycle of modern-day slavery. Within the restaurants themselves, Gaucho’s sustainable drinks programme offers biodynamic, organic and natural wines on tap, also helping to reduce their carbon footprint. All Gaucho restaurants also operate a zero food to landfill policy and all sites run on 100% renewable energy.

Now check out our list of sustainable restaurants in London here.