Our readers' favourite new restaurant in the UK is a tiny farm-to-table spot in a surprising English city

It’s a shivery evening in March outside, but inside twenty eight there’s an expansive hug of feelgood Friday tunes on the playlist – Bowie, a little Johnny Cash, a tablespoon of Abba – and an orange-blossom Old Fashioned being stirred. Then the plates start landing, one by one as they’re prepared, bringing warm colour to the table: a squad of anchovies doused in a nutty red salsa macha; a trio of mushroom croquettes, topped in a snow drift of parmesan, to be dipped in walnut ketchup; a cushion of sourdough crumpet, its nduja and ale rarebit blistered under the grill. We order the Kentucky fried artichokes for the name alone, which turn out to be nuggets of Jerusalem artichoke, batter-crisped, salty and moreish, thankfully not served in a bucket.

Growing up 40 miles away in south Manchester, Chester meant childhood visits to Chester Zoo and the Roman amphitheatre, and skipping along the covered medieval shopping walkways known as the Rows. Maybe it was famous for its garum during Roman times, but I don’t remember its food ever being mentioned – but then again, the same could be said for most towns in 1980s England. “Chester’s always drawn in lots of people, for the races and the historic sights, so traditional venues like pubs and classic fine dining have always done well,” Jay Tanner, the young chef at twenty eight, tells me. Arkle – named after a once-famous steeplechaser owned by the late Duchess of Westminster – is a long-standing Michelin Guide fixture at the Chester Grosvenor, and Jay points to Da Noi and Sticky Walnut as having “pushed Chester’s boundaries” – Sticky Walnut being the debut restaurant of local hero Gary Usher, formerly of Chez Bruce. (When it opened in 2011, The Guardian’s critic du jour, the redoubtable Marina O'Loughlin, reckoned that “If I could clone Sticky Walnut, I would. I’d plonk its like the length of the land, replacing every Frankie & Benny’s and La Tasca and Café bloody Rouge.”)

Twenty eight, meanwhile, has been around since August 2023, right next door to its decade-old sibling, Chef’s Table, and sporting the tagline of ‘British tapas fresh from the field’. That particular field is Field 28, a family-run, no-dig farm in the Cheshire village of Daresbury, which grows vegetables and greens for both restaurants – karavel onions, baby turnips, purple sprouting broccoli, and the blue pepe nasturtiums that adorn a stand-out dish of a whole gilt-head bream, seared over woodfire and served with a curl of harissa butter. Jay takes the whole team to the farm once a month, to see what’s growing and get to know the soil.

“Our main aim is just to offer local seasonal produce served in exciting ways,” he tells me, “while keeping the price as accessible as possible.” And the prices are very reasonable – three plates for £18 before 5pm, five for £30. The team cuts down food waste by sharing unused ingredients with the restaurant next door. It’s a laidback outfit but one with serious intent. Jay’s partner Charlotte runs the front of house – an informative and efficient presence who’s also a dab hand at making cocktails. And Jay is young, ambitious and keen to learn as much as can; the place is small enough – the name refers to the number of covers – for him to experiment a little with the farm produce and see what sticks and have a bit of fun. Every last Wednesday of the month, the restaurant reveals its alter ego, Siu Tang, fusing Asian dishes with Nineties hip-hop.

Back at our table, the dishes keep landing – tender strips of gravlax trout cured in gin and beetroot juice from the farm with twigs of pickled chard and chargrilled orange; a rich barbecued ox heart, marinated for 24 hours in a spicy brine and served with a hunk of hash brown, with a pot of chimichurri sauce to pour over. The sticky beef feather blade is a hearty heft for winter appetites, a pool of vivid green parsley sauce scattered with crunches of crisp barley. An endive salad, simply presented with candied walnuts and Croxton Manor Stilton, would have better suited a lunch, but the pudding of custard tart with rhubarb compote gives a nostalgia hit of custard tarts after school. In between, pony-tailed sommelier Cino appears at our side to recommend another glass before whizzing next door, like a butler from a French farce.

“Chester definitely punches above its weight,” Chris Laidler, the owner of nearby Covino, a wine bar and restaurant with a recently opened outpost in Manchester, tells me. Like twenty eight, Covino is pushing the culinary boundaries of the city, drawing on ingredients from Field 28 for inspiration. “It’s right next to the fields where rave festival Creamfields is held,” Chris laughs. “I wonder what’s in the soil around there…” Whatever it is, it’s helping Chester carve out an intriguing food scene of its own.