The National Restaurant Awards has published its Opening of the Year shortlist for 2026, and the six names on the list tell a story about where serious British restaurant ambition is currently pointing. Mayfair has two entries. Brighton, which has waited more than fifty years for a Michelin star, has one. And a restaurant in Guernsey that earned its star in year one has made the cut ahead of a field of London competitors.
The full ceremony takes place in London next month. Here is the shortlist.
Maré by Rafael Cagali, Brighton and Hove
The bookmaker's favourite and arguably the story of the year in British restaurant terms. Rafael Cagali, the two-Michelin-starred chef behind Da Terra in Bethnal Green Town Hall, opened Maré on Church Road in Hove in late 2025. It earned a Michelin star within six months — the first restaurant in Brighton and Hove to be so recognised in more than half a century.
Maré sits tonally between Da Terra's intensity and the more casual register of Cagali's other Bethnal Green Town Hall project, Elis. The menu is fish-forward, market-led and shorter than Da Terra's — around nine courses — but executed with the same precision. The response from critics was immediate and almost unanimous. More significantly, the dining public followed. Maré has become one of the hardest tables to book in the south of England.
Matt Abé, Mayfair
Matt Abé spent years as Gordon Ramsay's chef de cuisine at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, widely credited with stewarding the kitchen through its sustained three-star period. His debut solo venture, occupying the former Le Gavroche site on Upper Brook Street, arrived with enormous expectation and met it — earning two Michelin stars in its first award cycle.
The cooking is precise, classically grounded and built on an exceptional sourcing network that Abé developed over decades in and around London's fine dining supply chain. The room, reimagined from the Roux family's legendary but slightly stiff original, now has a contemporary warmth that has made it more democratic without losing its seriousness.
74 Charlotte Street, Ben Murphy
Ben Murphy's return to the capital following his departure from Launceston Place has been watched closely by everyone who tracked his work there. His Charlotte Street site — a neighbourhood location he chose deliberately over a higher-profile address — has developed a following for refined, classical cooking that trusts the produce to do most of the work. Critics have praised its lack of performance: no elaborate theatre, no tasting-menu-only insistence, just cooking of consistent quality in a comfortable room.
Aces Foodcraft, London
Eight years in the making, built by Alex Craciun and Aleksandra Jazevica from a shared conviction that London needed a restaurant operating at this level in this part of the city. The format pivots through the day — a tight tapas-format lunch becomes a more structured, conventional fine dining experience by evening — and the cooking integrates Eastern European technique into the British fine dining conversation in a way that feels new without being attention-seeking.
Mayfair Seafood (Ross Shonhan)
Ross Shonhan's contribution to the Mayfair seafood category has been described as "operatically ambitious" by more than one critic. The space is lavish, the menu unapologetically showmanlike, and the sourcing — live seafood from UK day boats, shellfish from Scottish waters — underpins the spectacle with genuine quality. Whether the ceremony translates to the plate across an evening remains the central debate, but on the occasions when it does, the results are remarkable.
Nathan Davies, Guernsey
The most geographically remote entry on the shortlist and, in some respects, the most straightforwardly impressive. Nathan Davies, previously based in Wales, moved to the Channel Islands and opened a restaurant that earned a Michelin star in its first year. That alone would merit inclusion. The fact that the food itself has drawn visitors from the mainland makes the argument for Davies' consideration considerably stronger.
What the Shortlist Tells Us
Outside London has rarely featured as prominently on this shortlist as it does this year, with two non-London entries (Maré and Davies' Guernsey restaurant) both considered serious contenders. The conversation about London's structural dominance of the UK restaurant awards landscape — a perennial debate — may shift slightly this year depending on the outcome.
The winner will be announced at the full NRA ceremony in June.