Brighton’s Best Restaurants is run by three people who share a passion for restaurants and their hometown: Andy Lynes, Patrick McGuigan and Suzanne Lindfors. Founding member Euan Macdonald has now become a restaurateur himself and has stepped back from involvement in the annual awards.

We set up Brighton’s Best Restaurants in 2015 because we felt many of the fantastic restaurants in the city were not getting the attention they deserved. The idea was to champion independent restaurants and get the word out about what a great place Brighton & Hove was for eating out.

So, we asked people in the know to vote for their favourite restaurants, we put on a big party and we announced the Top 20 restaurants in the city. It got so much attention and was such good fun that we then decided to organise a two-week-long restaurant festival called OctoberBEST, where the best restaurants put on special set-price menus. Hundreds of people booked tables and ate out at restaurants they hadn’t tried before. 

A decade on, we’re still doing exactly this. Every spring, we announce the city’s best restaurants, as voted for by Brighton and Hove’s top foodies, at an industry party. And every autumn, we run OctoberBEST. The only difference now is that there are even more fantastic independent restaurants in the city than when we started, so our Top 20 has become a Top 30. OctoberBEST gets bigger and better each year too, with thousands flocking to the website on launch day to book tables.

We are passionate about championing the independent restaurants that make our city such a great place to live. We hope we’ve played a small part in helping to put Brighton and Hove on the food map.

If you want to know more about how we organise the awards and OctoberBEST, there’s a lot more detail in our FAQs.

Drop us an email anytime at suzlindfors@hotmail.com