Best Restaurants in Sussex

In total, there are 42 award winning restaurants in Sussex, based on the combined awards from the leading UK restaurant guides.

Were you expecting to see more restaurants in Sussex? Remember at Leading Restaurants we only list restaurants holding awards from major restaurant guides; currently less than 3% of all restaurants in the UK and Ireland hold an award from a major guide.

The best restaurant in Sussex is Interlude in Horsham (based on our unique combination of the leading UK restaurant guides) where head chef Jean Delport serves up award winning Creative Cuisine. Interlude currently holds 1 Michelin Star, 4 AA Rosettes and a ranking of 75th in UK in the Hardens Top 100.

There are currently 3 listed Michelin Star restaurants in Sussex consisting of 3 restaurants holding 1 Michelin Star. There are also 2 restaurants holding a Michelin Bib Gourmand and 13 restaurants holding a standard Michelin Guide listing.

There are currently 30 listed AA Rosette restaurants in Sussex consisting of 2 restaurants holding 4 AA Rosettes, 3 restaurants holding 3 AA Rosettes, 17 restaurants holding 2 AA Rosettes and 8 restaurants holding 1 AA Rosette.

Sussex has long cultivated an enviable reputation for food that is both honest and quietly ambitious, drawing on its rolling farmland and its proud position along the English coast. In towns such as Brighton, Lewes, and Chichester, you find a dining culture that treats seasonal produce not as a fashionable buzzword but as a point of identity. Local chefs have spent decades perfecting dishes that reflect the landscape itself, from buttery South Downs lamb to seafood pulled from the Channel only hours before reaching the plate. Even the humbler establishments, the bakeries and family run cafes, seem to carry a sense of inherited craft, as though each recipe has been handed down with whispers of local history still clinging to it. What intrigues a restaurant critic most, however, is the way Sussex balances tradition with thoughtful reinvention. The county has nurtured a number of chefs who champion modern British cuisine without discarding the rustic comforts Sussex is known for. Vineyards have flourished, bringing with them tasting rooms that offer carefully paired menus, and old coaching inns have transformed into gastropubs where the Sunday roast feels both familiar and elevated. In this way, Sussex manages to be both a culinary archive and a place of constant evolution, inviting diners to taste not only its present but the centuries of food culture that shaped it.