Restaurant in Bath, United Kingdom
No menu, no substitutions, no regrets.
Menu Gordon Jones is Bath's most distinctive tasting format: eight surprise courses daily, no menu, no substitutions, and a relaxed supper-club energy anchored by serious cooking. Michelin Plate-recognised for 2024 and 2025, with a 4.9 Google rating across 417 reviews. Book well ahead — it fills fast and the format is non-negotiable for omnivores only.
Yes, book it — but go in knowing exactly what you are signing up for. Menu Gordon Jones is a no-menu, no-substitutions, no-hesitation tasting experience built around eight courses that change daily. If you are an omnivore who is willing to hand over control entirely, this is one of the most distinctive meals you can eat in Bath, or anywhere in the South West. If you have dietary restrictions, are vegetarian, or prefer to know what you are eating before you order it, this is not the right room for you.
The first thing that sets the tone at Menu Gordon Jones is the room itself. The space at 2 Wellsway is small, the music is loud, and the open kitchen dominates the layout in a way that blurs the line between restaurant and supper club. There is a large sign beside the pass that reads 'Live Sex Show'. The energy is high, the atmosphere is deliberately irreverent, and that is entirely the point. If you are expecting the hushed formality that Bath's Georgian architecture tends to suggest, recalibrate before you arrive.
The cooking sits in serious contrast to the decor. What you get across eight courses is a technically confident tasting format that fuses Indian spicing with British seasonal produce — a combination that sounds conceptually bold on paper but reportedly lands with real coherence on the plate. Dishes cited in Michelin's assessment include tandoori monkfish in curried cream with apple matchsticks and pumpkin seeds, rose veal with horseradish mash and candied artichoke, and a warm apple and medjool date cake in miso caramel with sea buckthorn sorbet. The menu opens with warm home-baked sourdough alongside Bloody Mary butter and Jerusalem artichoke syrup, which signals immediately that this kitchen values punchy, layered flavour over refinement for its own sake. Foraged and preserved ingredients feature regularly, including mushrooms foraged, pickled, and dried in-house.
Tasting arc here is worth understanding before you book. This is not the kind of progression you find at L'Enclume in Cartmel or CORE by Clare Smyth in London, where restraint and precision accumulate quietly into something revelatory. Menu Gordon Jones moves through contrasting flavour intensities with more velocity , playful bites alongside technically demanding savouries, schoolroom puddings sitting next to desserts built around sabayon and San Zeno dessert wine. The progression is designed to surprise, not to build a single sustained narrative. For diners who find conventional tasting menus too linear or too deferential, that is a selling point. For those who prefer a more composed arc, venues like Gidleigh Park in Chagford or Moor Hall in Aughton offer tighter formal structures.
Gordon Jones serves many of the courses himself and talks guests through each dish, which changes the texture of the meal considerably. This is not table-side theatre for its own sake , it makes the experience feel genuinely personal rather than choreographed. The result is closer to eating at a chef's table than a conventional restaurant, despite the relatively modest room size. The Google rating of 4.9 across 417 reviews is unusually high and consistent with the Michelin Plate recognition the venue has held for both 2024 and 2025.
Wine by the glass is limited if you do not opt for the wine flights, though the sommelier is reported to guide guests well. If you are serious about the pairing, take the flight. For context on Bath's broader dining offer, see our full Bath restaurants guide, and for the city's bar and wine scene, our Bath bars guide and Bath wineries guide are useful companions.
This is a hard booking. The room is small, the format is fixed, and demand is high relative to capacity. Book as early as possible , weeks or months ahead depending on your dates. There are no walk-in options for a venue operating at this level of specificity. Check the official website directly for availability. Given the no-substitutions policy, confirm your group's dietary situation before you book rather than after.
| Venue | Price | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Menu Gordon Jones | ££££ | Hard | — |
| The Bath Priory | ££££ | Unknown | — |
| Olive Tree | ££££ | Unknown | — |
| The Chequers | ££ | Unknown | — |
| Montagu's Mews | £££ | Unknown | — |
| Oak | ££ | Unknown | — |
Key differences to consider before you reserve.
The room at 2 Wellsway is small and dominated by an open kitchen — this is a sit-down tasting format, not a drop-in bar setup. There is no bar dining option documented for this venue. If you want flexibility to walk in and eat without a reservation, Menu Gordon Jones is not the right format.
Book as early as possible — weeks or months ahead is the realistic window. The room is tiny, the format is fixed to a set number of covers, and demand consistently outpaces capacity. Leaving it to the week before will likely mean you miss out, especially on weekends.
No. The venue operates a strict no-substitutions policy, and vegetarians or those with food intolerances are explicitly directed elsewhere. This is not a venue that accommodates dietary requirements — that is a deliberate part of the format, not an oversight. If your group has restrictions, book somewhere else in Bath instead.
Yes, provided everyone in your group is an omnivore with no dietary restrictions. The personal service, open kitchen, and eight-course surprise format make it feel more like a supper club than a formal restaurant — which works well for celebrations where the experience itself is the event. The ££££ price point and Michelin Plate recognition (2024 and 2025) align with what you'd expect to spend on a significant occasion in Bath.
For omnivores who are comfortable handing over control of the meal, yes. The daily-changing surprise menu fuses Indian spicing with British ingredients across eight courses, and Gordon Jones serves many dishes himself. At ££££, it sits at the top of Bath's dining price range, but the Michelin Plate recognition for two consecutive years and consistent editorial praise for its flavour combinations support the spend. If you prefer to choose your own dishes, Olive Tree in Bath offers a more conventional tasting format.
Olive Tree (in the Queensberry Hotel) is the closest like-for-like alternative for serious tasting menu dining in Bath, with a Michelin Star and a more conventional format that accommodates dietary preferences. The Bath Priory suits groups who want country-house atmosphere alongside their tasting menu. If the no-choice format at Menu Gordon Jones is what puts you off rather than the price, Olive Tree is the practical alternative.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
