The Restaurant Guide for Wine Lovers
Bar Iberico
Bar Iberico is a lively Nottingham tapas bar with a genuinely Spanish drinks list built for its own cooking. The wine programme achieves real mutual elevation through a proper Sherry range that answers the menu's hardest plates, backed by a Rioja ladder and a broad by-the-glass offer, let down only by thin sparkling breadth and no sustainability thread. It will most reward the curious drinker who wants to explore Sherry and Rioja by the glass alongside a table of shared tapas.
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Raymond's
Nottingham, Nottinghamshire
Modern European small plates
Raymond's is a wine-led modern-European small-plates restaurant in Nottingham's Lace Market, cooking a seasonal, produce-led menu with early Michelin recognition. Its wine list is among the most serious and characterful in the guide — deep in natural, organic and biodynamic growers, generous by the glass and carafe, with a proper orange section and a real sweet-and-fortified corner — and it answers the hardest plates, the acid-sharp trout and the chilli-and-sweet crudo, with exactly the right high-acid and skin-contact styles. It will most reward the curious drinker who loves to explore wine and wants a kitchen and a cellar built around it.
Read the assessmentBaresca
Nottingham, Nottinghamshire
Spanish tapas
Baresca is a Nottingham tapas bar with a genuinely serious, characterful all-Iberian wine list built for its own cooking. The wine programme achieves real mutual elevation — dish-annotated pairings, a Sherry and Port range that answers the hardest plates, an organic thread and cult Spanish bottles, all kept open by a broad by-the-glass and carafe offer. It will most reward the curious drinker who wants to explore Spain properly — Sherry, Txakoli, Galician whites and Ribera reds — alongside a table of shared tapas.
Read the assessmentFothergills
Nottingham, Nottinghamshire
International gastropub
Fothergills is an international bistro and gastropub in a landmark Nottingham building, cooking a wide-ranging seasonal menu from moules to a makhani lamb shank. Its wine list is a broad, capable retail-supplied selection, style-grouped and strong on sparkling, that copes with the menu without being curated to it — short of an off-dry white for the curries and of much dessert wine beyond a Port. It will most suit a diner who wants a well-priced, easy-to-navigate glass alongside relaxed, far-ranging cooking.
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