The Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum in Glasgow hosted the UK restaurant industry’s most anticipated event of the year last week: MICHELIN Guide’s 2025 awards.
This year, 36 restaurants across England, Scotland and Wales won Bib Gourmand awards (great food for a reasonable price) while five Green Stars were awarded to UK-based restaurants for their innovative sustainable practices across the entire concept, from minimising food waste and miles, to their interior design. On to the stars: 22 restaurants received their first star, while three were awarded a second star, and one restaurant received its third. We’d love to visit every spot commended this season, but these are a few of the newly awarded Michelin-star restaurants we’re looking forward to dining at this year.
Lita, Marylebone, London
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Tucked just off Marylebone’s high street, Lita is a Mediterranean bistro at its heart. With the sleekness of a quietly confident restaurant that attracts Londoners with a discerning eye, Lita has introduced a refined style of European cuisine to London. And it shows: just less than a year after opening in March 2024, Lita has been awarded with the most prestigious award in the industry: a Michelin star. Founded by Daniel Koukarskikh with a menu headed up by head chef Luke Ahearne (previously at Luca, The Clove Club, Corrigan’s), the menu offers an appreciation for core Mediterranean produce, with the likes of Kentish radishes served with smoked cod’s roe, chopped Hereford beef with Amalfi lemon, and Fuentes Bluefin tuna with corno peppers and capers. Lita is an invigorating spot that we can’t wait to visit (and re-visit) this year.
Plates, Shoreditch, London
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Plates, by brother-sister duo Kirk and Keeley Haworth, is the first ever vegan restaurant to receive a Michelin star in the UK. It perhaps goes without saying that this plant-based restaurant is an expert on the finest earth-sourced produce, covering everything from flavour to seasonality. Cleverly, Plates blends an “old-world” – aka, nailing the basics of food and everything that makes good produce – style of cooking with innovative methods that we are seeing more and more of across leading restaurants. On the menu, find the likes of barbecued Maitake mushroom served with black bean mole, kimchi, aioli and puffed rice, and a raw cacao gateau with sour cherry, coconut-blossom ice cream, African pepper, toasted macadamia and raw caramel sauce to finish. It’s all in the fine-tuned attention to detail. Plates Farm in France is part of the restaurant group, and will host farm-to-table cooking retreats in May, June, and September this year.
OMA, Borough Market, London
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OMA in Borough Market is the UK’s first Greek restaurant to win a Michelin star. OMA affords a glimmer of the slow-paced lifestyle the Greek isles are known and loved for, with a menu that heroes the importance of good-quality ingredients and single-produce led dishes, away from anything processed or too contrived. From the hand-dived scallops to the king prawns served with tomato rice, everything here is a celebration of classic Greek fare. It’s appearing to be a fruitful year for the restaurant, which was also the recipient of the Opening of the Year award for its impact on London’s food scene during the awards ceremony.
Caractère, Notting Hill, London
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You could say it runs in the family, as Michel Roux’s daughter, Emily Roux’s restaurant is the latest Michelin-star recipient for her Notting Hill-based restaurant Caractère. But, saying that would take away from just how clever and playful the menu at Caractère really is. The tasting menu, comprised of six parts, is divided between adjectives rather than traditional courses, from the ‘curious’ to the ‘delicate’ and the ‘greedy’. Across each part, find the likes of saffron risotto with Sicilian prawn and green shisho, or red mullet and artichoke in dishes so elegant you’ll be tempted not to eat them (if they didn’t taste so good, that is). The restaurant also offers the chance to build your own personal selection of artisan cheeses, served with a range of homemade seed crackers and chutneys.
Dosa, Mandarin Oriental Mayfair, London
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Centred around the sleek kitchen, Dosa is an immersive experience as much as a very good restaurant. Angled like a private chef’s table experience, you’ll dine at a counter overlooking the chefs hard at work, elegantly plating the brill and sea urchin, seaweed soup or ginseng and ingeolmi ssamanko. Found at Mandarin Oriental Mayfair, Dosa offers a Korean-inspired tasting menu by executive chef Jihun Kim – who has also assisted with Akira Back restaurant openings – and is a one-of-a-kind dining experience.
Lyla, Edinburgh, Scotland
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Lyla in Edinburgh is officially the top place in the UK to dine on exquisite seafood. The menu champions line-caught fish (a more sustainable practice than dredging with nets) and sustainable shellfish, all sourced from the Scottish Isles, as well as top meat and vegetable producers in the UK. The tasting menu at Lyla changes regularly, but you can expect dishes in a similar vein to cured plaice with exmoor caviar and Yorkshire rhubarb with red pepper and goats milk.
Read the full list of recipients here.
Lead image credit: Lita Marylebone
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