Gastropub Awards 2020

At last night’s Gastropub awards, a London Gastropub, the Harwood Arms has topped the leaderboard for the first time. Head chef of the Harwood Arms, Sally Abé, has risen four places up this year, relegating Stephen Harris’s the Sportsman to second place. This follows a great run for her as she also maintained the 10-year-old pub’s Michelin star last year, ensuring the pub stands as London’s only Michelin starred gastropub.

More than 400 gastropub owners, food critics and other industry experts have been voting to decide which gastropubs across the UK will make it into the Top 50. The Harwood Arms is one of just seven London pubs on the 2020 Top 50 Gastropubs list, with 18 coming from north of the city, 25 from the south, two in the Midlands and one in Wales.

This year’s Highest New Entry was Midlands gastropub the Boat Inn, Lichfield, Staffordshire, who joined the list at number 20, which follows last year’s success where they took the title of Newcomer of the year. Another standout of this year’s awards is the Angel at Hetton in Skipton, Yorkshire who have been named as this year’s Highest Climber rising a whopping 39 places from 50 last year to 11 this year. Chef and owner Michael Wignall and his wife Johanna took over the pub in 2018 and, as well as cementing a higher spot on the list, managed to secure a Michelin star last year. This is one of 12 Michelin starred pubs who made it into the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs list.

Aston spoke to Nicholas Robinson, head judge at last night’s Gastropub Awards to discuss the awards itself and uncover some of the pubs that ranked in the 50 list at the Gastropub awards.