100 Restaurants Worth a Pilgrimage: England

This new bar-restaurant in East London’s renovated Shoreditch Town Hall features chef Isaac McHale’s take on British seasonal food as well as his greatest hits, like buttermilk fried chicken with pine salt. thecloveclub.com

Chef James Knappett and his wife, Sandia Chang, opened this dual-concept restaurant after agreeing to disagree. “Sandia wanted to do hot dogs,” explains star-chef Thomas Keller. “James is committed to fine dining. They split the place in half.” In front, an exposed-brick bar offers hot dogs (beef, pork and vegetarian) with quirky toppings and small-batch grower champagnes. Behind the counter is Knappet’s Kitchen Table, a 19-seat dining room with an open kitchen serving a Modern European omakase twice per evening. bubbledogs.co.uk

Lyon, France-born chef Claude Bosi offers tasting menus with elements of his own brand of comfort food (lamb sweetbreads roasted in salted butter) and playful French (roast cod with strawberry sauce velouté). hibiscusrestaurant.co.uk

At this former smokehouse turned restaurant, nose-to-tail dining icon Fergus Henderson turns out no-frills, offal-centric dishes, including his signature roasted bone marrow with lemony, caper-studded parsley salad. It’s the only dish that’s always on the ever-changing menu. stjohngroup.uk.com

Chef Sat Bains offers a seven-, eight- or 10-course tasting menu of flawless French cuisine at this restaurant and hotel in a restored farmhouse two hours north of London. Bains’s specialties include mackerel with beetroot, horseradish and lardo, and slow-poached duck egg with peas, pea sorbet and shards of Jabugo ham. restaurantsatbains.com

Heston Blumenthal’s molecular showcase, located an hour outside London, is widely considered one of the best restaurants in the world. Housed in a 450-year-old cottage, the spare, modern dining room has white tablecloths, a few colorful paintings and a lot of culinary fireworks. The Sound of the Sea—a dish of seaweed and fish over a sand-like mixture of tapioca, bread crumbs and miso oil—is served with an iPod so diners can listen to seaside noises while they eat. Blumenthal believes the audio makes the flavors seem more intense. thefatduck.co.uk

This remarkable rural gastropub in the charming coastal village of Seasalter offers a blackboard menu and daily tasting based on what chef Steve Harris sources from nearby. Dishes are ambitious and hyper-local, such as bread with pork scratchings, home-churned butter and sel gris that Harris personally harvests from the sea. thesportsmanseasalter.co.uk