The Restaurant Guide for Wine Lovers
Lytham House
Lytham House is a smart brasserie in Lytham whose kitchen runs from oysters and steak to spiced and seafood plates. Its wine list is compact but genuinely broad by the glass — crisp whites and structured reds across three pour sizes and a characterful orange wine, with a bottle-only flight of English sparkling and Champagne to finish — held back only by a real gap at the sweet end and pairings largely left to the diner. It will suit anyone who likes to drink by the glass and range widely without committing to a bottle, especially over a steak.
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Northcote
Langho, Lancashire
Modern British
Northcote is a Michelin-starred country-house restaurant in the Ribble Valley cooking a seasonal modern British menu. Its wine programme is one of the most complete in the north of England — an encyclopaedic cellar made genuinely usable through a printed pairing for every dish, an extensive by-the-glass and Coravin offering, and a fortified line to match. It will most reward the wine lover who wants either a great bottle from a deep list or the freedom to drink famous wines by the glass, and who values a kitchen that builds its food around what is in the cellar.
Read the assessmentMoor Hall
Aughton (Ormskirk), Lancashire
Modern British tasting menu
Moor Hall is a two-tasting-menu kitchen whose cellar is among the most serious in Britain. The programme's real achievement is that the hardest matches — the smoked eel, the fried artichoke — are solved for you, whether in a course-by-course flight or from a list deep enough to answer almost anything. It will suit the drinker who wants to hand the whole evening to a sommelier they can trust, or to browse one of the country's great cellars at leisure.
Read the assessmentThe Barn at Moor Hall
Aughton (Ormskirk), Lancashire
Modern British
The Barn at Moor Hall is the relaxed second room of a serious Lancashire kitchen, cooking seasonal modern British food from its own gardens. The wine programme achieves genuine mutual elevation — a merchant-grade, grower-led list whose deep English sparkling and high-acid whites are precisely what the menu's cured fish and green vegetables need, with a by-the-glass and 100ml sweet offer that lets a curious drinker match the wine plate by plate. It will most reward the wine lover who wants a properly bought list, and an English fizz worth crossing the room for, in a kitchen at the top of its game.
Read the assessmentThe Inn at Whitewell
Whitewell (Clitheroe), Lancashire
Modern British gastropub
The Inn at Whitewell is a much-loved Forest of Bowland inn cooking generous, local, produce-led food. Its wine programme is genuinely special for a pub — a flavour-organised list from a single long-standing merchant, taught through full tasting notes and printed food matches, deepened by a Coravin fine-wine-by-the-glass tier and finished with vintage Port and Sauternes — a cellar that rewards curiosity as much as it flatters the cooking. It will most reward the drinker who wants to explore a serious list at their own pace, glass by glass, in one of the most characterful inns in the North.
Read the assessmentThe Whalley Wine Bar
Whalley, Lancashire
Wine bar (cheese and charcuterie)
The Whalley Wine Bar is a Ribble Valley bottle shop and bar where simple, wine-friendly grazing plates sit beside a cellar of genuine depth. Its wine programme is the reason to go — a merchant's collection of several hundred bottles, strong on France and Italy, rich in fine wine and mature vintages, and sold to drink in at close to shop prices, which is as much value as a serious wine lover will find anywhere. It will most reward the curious drinker who wants to open something well above their usual bottle without a restaurant markup, and who is happy to graze rather than dine while they do it.
Read the assessmentQuite Simply French
Lancaster, Lancashire
French
Quite Simply French is a French bistro with rooms on the Lancaster quayside that prints a considered wine, by the glass, against nearly every dish it serves. The wine programme earns its standing on that integration and on two genuine strengths — a Champagne shelf and a port-and-dessert tail well beyond what a restaurant this size usually carries — on a French-led list let down only by an undated, house-leaning still-wine core and no wine-sustainability story. It will most reward the diner who comes to eat French classics and let the menu choose the glass, and who saves room for the ports.
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