- Highest New Entry 2025
It will come as no surprise that The Devonshire in London’s Soho has come into the Top 50 Gastropubs as the highest new entry.
The Devonshire has been a roaring success since former Guinea Grill legend and publican Oisin Rogers took over the pub with Flat Iron founder and beef supremo Charlie Carroll and former Heston Blumenthal chef Ashley Palmer-Watts.
It is a match made in heaven. Rogers has the strong background in running successful pubs including the St Margarets Tavern near Twickenham and The Ship in Wandsworth, while Carroll has the strong restaurant lineage having founded Flat Iron as well as working with a range of restaurant operations. Palmer-Watts worked at The Fat Duck Group for 20 years and also co-founded the Artisan Coffee Co.
And the rest is history as they say as the trio opened The Devonshire in the former Jamie Oliver restaurant site on Denham Street in November 2023. The venue, which opened as pub in 1793, had recently been operating as a chicken and burger restaurant before being restored to its former glory.
The pub serves up premium quality, homemade food, focusing on the best of British produce using its own in-house butcher and bakery.
The main pub is on the ground floor while on the first floor is its restaurant and grill room and dining rooms that have been gaining critical acclaim.
Dishes include items such as Scottish beef, dry-aged and butchered on site, creel-caught langoustines from Oban, the freshest day boat fish, lobster and hand-dived scallops from Devon.
As well as its reputation escalating for the food offer this is still a pub. The bar has the reputation for serving the best Guinness in London and if the rumours are true selling more pints of Guinness than any other pub in the UK or Ireland.
This is only the start of the awards and recognition for The Devonshire. It has already been cited as the Opening of the Year and Gastro Pub of the Year at the National Restaurant Awards.
