Bath Good Food Awards: Best Vegetarian Restaurant and People's Choice Awards

The inaugural Bath Good Food Awards were this month and we're truly honoured to have won Best Vegetarian Restaurant and the People's Choice Award. To receive the People's Choice Award was just fantastic - it really means our customers like what we are doing. We are passionate about producing delicious food with vegetables at the heart of the dish and to have this recognised in this way is a real boost. Many thanks to our customers for voting for us.

We were also Highly Commended in the Best Restaurant and Best Bath Institution categories. Judges praised the menu devised by our head chef Richard Buckley for its seasonal and locally sourced ingredients and said that all the dishes were well conceived and executed, and served-up by the superb, professional and knowledgeable front of house team. Comments included: “They clearly have a passion for what they do” and “It really is lick smackingly good!”

The awards were presented at a lavish award ceremony at the Guildhall on Tuesday 4^th October with over 200 guests including restaurateurs, chefs, food producers, sommeliers, and food bloggers. I felt like quite a celebrity, especially along side Bernard Aherne (above). Bernard is founder and MD of Small World New Media Ltd who operates the Guide2TheWorld websites including Guide2Bath.com and collaborated with thepigguide.com to launch the awards.

A nice quote from Bernard:

“We greatly enjoyed judging the best of the best and receiving the views of Bath’s discerning restaurant diners who nominated their favourite institutions and judged our People’ Choice winning restaurant Demuths. I would like to congratulate all of worthy winners and promise that the Bath Good Food Awards will continue to support the very best culinary talent Bath has to offer.”

We too would like to congratulate all of the winners in the Bath Good Food Awards. This city truly does have a rich community of incredible restaurants and food producers, some of the best in the UK and the world. It's a joy to live here.

The awards were decided by ten ‘mystery’ judges who spent three months visiting and dining at Bath restaurants to assess the very top institutions in twenty-four categories. They deliberated on a testing criteria of excellence from front of house to the quality and provenance of the ingredients, and the breadth and quality of the wine list to the ambience and warmth of their welcome. They explored every style of eatery from fine dining to breakfast bars, sandwich shops to international cuisine, and family friendly restaurants to the region’s top food producers.

The ‘mystery’ judges included: Guardian food and wine writer Fiona Beckett; award-winning chef, baker and writer Richard Bertinet; wine consultant and compere for the Bath Good Food Awards Angela Mount, food entrepneur and founder of Cupboard Love Preserves, Silvana Tann and Lorna Knapman director and founder of the successful Love Food Festivals.

Thank you to everyone who helped organise the Bath Good Food Awards and the great party that came with it. Thanks especially to our customers who voted for us in The People's Choice award. Where would we be without you?