The best restaurants in Liverpool for 2024

Liverpool’s award-winning, fine-dining restaurant The Art School brings together inventive Modern British cooking and an impressive historic setting.

Indian Tiffin Room, the successful North West independent, has brought its authentic street food flavours to Liverpool.

There’s a bonhomie and a sense of welcome at Vetch, marking it out as a friendly neighbourhood restaurant and simultaneously one of the best fine dining establishments in Liverpool.

Voyagers in The Halyard Liverpool is in the league of hotel restaurants that become a destination in their own right. A sophisticated and well-travelled menu of small plates combined with inviting modern design make it a standout addition to the Ropewalks. Expect an individual take on cool, casual dining.

Like the backstreet Venetian tapas places which inspired this central Liverpool bar and restaurant, there is something about Salt House Bacaro that makes you never want to leave.

The food at Bistro Franc takes its inspiration from the bistros of Paris, adds a dollop of Mediterranean flair and serves with a side order of modern British cuisine to present a menu packed with “plats de résistance” and a good choice of chargrilled steaks.

Squished on the cusp of the Knowledge Quarter and the Georgian Quarter and resident in the old Flying Picket since 2015, Buyers Club is a neighbourhood bar and kitchen-restaurant, complete with gallery, garden with coffee and spritz kiosk, and even an intimate music venue.

If you don’t like being told what to do, then Cowshed is probably not for you. The self-described beefhouse (as opposed to steakhouse) offers four types of steak, each served how they want to serve it, not how you ask them to serve it – “trust us”, they implore on the menu.

Headed by Vincent, this award-winning restaurant is run by members of the same family – the Margiottas – originally from the small historic town of Picinisco around 75 miles east of Rome, then Edinburgh, now here in Childwall, serving lovingly crafted classic Italian food.

The world’s greatest hand-held food is promised by Madre – tostadas, quesadillas and tacos tacos tacos. There’s also all the Mexican drinks vibes you could ever wish for, from beer and cocktails to tequila and mezcal – inside the historic Atlantic Pavilion or outside in the sunny courtyard.

The manifesto at industrial-chic restaurant and “dine-at-wine-bar” Manifest is “seasonal plates and famous Liverpool hospitality”, with the Modern British menus regularly changing to reflect both local produce availability and the wines that will be matched to the food.

Serving irresistible Middle Eastern fusion small plates, Maray is a slow-burning smash hit. Inspired by (and named after) the Middle-Eastern flavours of Paris’ Marais district, it provides an informal, communal dining experience which revolves around excellent falafels, small plates, fine wines and cocktails.

Nord is a real asset to Liverpool’s dining scene. Housed in a bit of an unlovely 1960s office block – the former HQ of Littlewoods – the building has had some serious TLC. Now the subtle décor has shades of Mad Men rather than The Fall And Rise of Reginald Perrin with pendant lights, earthy tones and a statement orange bar.

Papillon is a quaint-looking bistro-style restaurant, complete with baby pink paintwork and pinstripe canopy to match. In fact, it looks more like something on a French postcard than somewhere you’d find in the middle of Liverpool. 

With simple, regularly changing menus to showcase the best seasonal ingredients available at market, you can expect carefully prepared plates of stylish food at this equally chic wine bar and bistro tucked away on a “secret” jigger just off bustling Castle Street. 

Chef and co-owner Andrew Sheridan (who you might recognise from Great British Menu) has uprooted Restaurant 8 from Birmingham and returned to the city of his birth. It’s a tough blow for the Brummies; the restaurant had built up a mighty reputation in the city, being awarded three AA Rosettes. But it’s excellent news for Liverpool.

Translating as “welcome honoured guest”, the Yuet Ben is the oldest Chinese restaurant in Liverpool. It set up shop in 1968 at Chinatown’s 29 Great George Street, a stone’s throw from its present premises and in view of the famous Chinese Arch, the biggest outside China.