The team behind Northumberland’s Restaurant Pine – co-owners Cal and Sian Byerley, head chef Ian Waller, and restaurant manager and head sommelier Vanessa Stoltz – are celebrating after being named in SquareMeal’s Top 100 UK Restaurants for 2026.
Listed in the prestigious guide for the past three years, Restaurant Pine is the highest ranked restaurant in the North East in ninth place.
Unlike other lists, SquareMeal’s UK Top 100 excludes London restaurants, allowing the breadth and diversity of the UK’s regional dining scene to take centre stage. The list is compiled using a unique combination of thousands of reader votes alongside insight from SquareMeal’s expert crit-ics, offering a snapshot of Britain’s evolving and dynamic food culture. It features everything from fine dining and farm-to-table restaurants to standout gastropubs.
This dual approach makes the SquareMeal Top 100 particularly distinctive, reflecting not only pro-fessional critical opinion but also the real experiences of diners across the country.
SquareMeal’s list celebrates the best in emerging and established culinary styles, as well as the chefs and hospitality teams who consistently go above and beyond to deliver exceptional dining experiences. To be included, restaurants must offer far more than great food alone – judges con-sider every detail from interiors and drinks programmes to service, sustainability and overall ethos.
SquareMeal content director Caroline Hendry said: “For 2026, judges placed renewed emphasis not only on exceptional cooking, but also on sustainability and a commitment to positive, people-first working environments. With professional kitchens often recognised as high-pressure spaces, this year’s list highlights restaurants actively prioritising staff welfare alongside culinary excel-lence.”
Pine co-owners Cal and Sian Byerley said: “It’s always fantastic to be featured in lists like this, particularly when you’re being benchmarked alongside your peers from across the UK. Being listed in SquareMeal’s Top 100 UK Restaurants as the highest-ranked restaurant in the North East for the third consecutive year is massive for us. It recognises the dedication of the entire team and the huge amount of work that goes into what we do every day. Inclusion in such a re-spected list shows that we’re going about things the right way, and we’re incredibly proud to rep-resent our region and help showcase what Northumberland has to offer.”
The top 100 also features Anna Hedworth’s Long Friday in 74th place.
For the full list, click here.
