Restaurant in Durham, United Kingdom
Durham's tasting menu to book first.
Faru is Durham's most technically accomplished tasting menu restaurant, holding a Michelin Plate (2025) and a 4.8 Google rating. Jake and Laura Siddle's sourcing-led menu — five or ten courses at £££ — delivers precise, punchy cooking with a wine pairing programme that outperforms its regional peers. Book two to three weeks ahead; weekend slots fill fast.
Faru is the most considered tasting menu restaurant in Durham, and if you have been once, the question is not whether to return but which format to choose: the five-course lunch or the ten-course dinner. The Michelin Plate recognition (2025) and a Google rating of 4.8 from 56 reviews confirm what the room suggests — this is cooking that punches well above its postcode. At £££ per head with optional wine pairings, it sits at the leading of Durham's dining price tier, but the technical precision and sourcing intelligence behind the menu justify the spend in a way that few regional restaurants manage.
Walk past the neutral exterior on Silver Street and you could easily miss it. The signage is deliberately understated, the frontage gives nothing away, and that restraint continues inside: baby-blue walls, well-spaced circular tables, and an open kitchen that turns the act of cooking into part of the room's architecture. An antique stained-glass window sits behind the pass, giving the chefs a quietly theatrical backdrop without tipping into showiness. The space is intimate without being cramped, and the table spacing means you are not conducting your dinner in someone else's conversation.
The kitchen is run by Jake Siddle, who spent nine years at Newcastle's House of Tides before opening Faru with his wife Laura, who manages front of house with a team described as well-drilled and genuinely knowledgeable. That background matters because Moor Hall and L'Enclume have demonstrated what a tightly run husband-and-wife operation can produce at the highest level of British dining. Faru is not yet in that conversation, but the Michelin recognition and the consistency of the cooking suggest it is moving in the right direction.
The menu leans on sourcing choices that are specific enough to read as deliberate rather than decorative. Cambodian Kampot pepper on the duck, Sichuan pepper elsewhere, an Oliver Zeter Sauvignon Blanc Fumé from the Pfalz in the wine pairing — these are not generic premium ingredients, they are calls made by a kitchen that has thought about why one ingredient works better than another. The hen of the woods mushroom dish, built around chive emulsion, pak choi, chicken fat, yeast crumb, and mushroom dashi, is a good example of how sourcing and technique interact here: each component has a reason to be on the plate, and the result is the kind of umami depth that takes time and attention to construct. A spiral milk bread roll with bacon jam is served alongside to ensure none of the dashi is left behind, which tells you something about how the kitchen thinks about the full eating experience rather than just the headline dish.
Pork beignet with apple and vanilla custard, barbecued lamb glazed with black garlic, and lobster tart fill out the savoury sequence with punchy, precise flavour combinations. Honey- and orange-glazed duck comes with smoked beetroot dusted in Kampot pepper, caramelised chicory chutney, and a fried press of potato and duck leg , a dish that earns its place at the end of the savoury run. Desserts maintain the same standard: a hazelnut parfait with praline base, rum jelly, raisin gel, hazelnut and chocolate tuile, and banana sorbet is technically accomplished without tipping into over-complication. Coffee arrives with two petits fours , a lemon cheesecake and a lime and pineapple jelly , that round out the meal rather than padding it.
Wine pairing across ten courses opens with an English sparkling wine and moves through five bottles, with the Oliver Zeter Sauvignon Blanc Fumé as a notable inclusion , oaked and flinty, it is a more interesting choice than the standard Sancerre-adjacent selections you see at this price point. If wine pairings are important to you, this is a stronger programme than most regional tasting menu restaurants offer.
For a returning visitor, the ten-course dinner is the format that shows the kitchen at full stretch. The five-course lunch is a reasonable entry point, but the longer menu is where the sourcing logic and the structural thinking of the cooking become fully legible. If you are planning a special occasion dinner in Durham, Faru is the booking to make. For a lighter commitment, the lunch format works, though you will leave wanting to come back for the full run. Booking is moderately difficult , this is a small, high-demand room , so plan at least two to three weeks ahead for dinner, more for weekend slots. The restaurant is at 29 Silver Street, Durham DH1 3RD, centrally located and walkable from the city centre.
For context on how Faru sits within the broader regional tasting menu category, CORE by Clare Smyth, The Fat Duck, Gidleigh Park, and Hand and Flowers represent the benchmark tier for British tasting menus at the highest level. Faru is not in that price bracket, which makes the technical ambition of the kitchen here more notable, not less. For international reference points in modern cuisine, Frantzén in Stockholm and FZN by Björn Frantzén in Dubai show where this style of precision-sourced tasting menu cooking operates at its most developed. Faru is, by any honest measure, operating at a different scale , but the sourcing intelligence and structural discipline on display in Durham point to a kitchen that understands what it is working towards.
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Yes, for what it delivers at the £££ tier in a regional city like Durham. The Michelin Plate recognition (2025) and a 4.8 Google rating give you a baseline, but the more useful signal is what you get for the money: precise technique, a sourcing-led menu with specific ingredient choices, and a wine pairing programme that goes beyond the generic. Compare that to Nanas or Little Bull at a similar price point and Faru has a clearer culinary argument. If tasting menu formats are not your preference, the price is harder to justify , but for the format, it earns it.
The open kitchen counter setup makes Faru a reasonable choice for a solo visit , you have something to watch and the format is self-contained enough that dining alone does not feel awkward. That said, the tasting menu structure is designed for a paced, multi-course experience rather than a quick meal, so commit to the time. Durham city centre is compact and walkable, so building Faru into a solo day trip to the city makes practical sense. The knowledgeable front-of-house team, led by Laura Siddle, adds to the solo experience rather than making it feel clinical.
Allow two to three weeks minimum for a weekday dinner slot and closer to four weeks for Friday or Saturday evenings. The room is small and demand has grown since the Michelin Plate was awarded in 2025, so weekend slots in particular move quickly. Lunch is somewhat easier to secure at shorter notice, which makes it a useful option if your schedule is flexible. Book direct via the restaurant , 29 Silver Street, Durham DH1 3RD , as no booking method is listed on their site at time of writing.
The exterior is deliberately low-key, so do not expect prominent signage on Silver Street. Inside, the format is a tasting menu , either five or ten courses , so this is not a venue for an à la carte dinner or a quick bite. The open kitchen is central to the experience: you can watch the cooking from the dining room, and the chefs are visible throughout the meal. The food leans on specific, sourced ingredients with clear flavour logic , Sichuan pepper, Kampot pepper, mushroom dashi , so if bold, precise flavours are what you are after, the kitchen is aligned with that. Wine pairings are available and worth considering given the thought behind the selections. See our Durham restaurants guide for alternatives if the tasting menu format is not right for your group.
The ten-course menu is the stronger case for the kitchen's ability. It shows the sourcing logic across a full sequence , from the Parmesan shortbreads at the start through to the petits fours at the end , in a way the five-course lunch cannot fully demonstrate. The five courses are well executed, but if you are deciding between the two formats and the occasion justifies it, the longer menu is where the cooking is at its most coherent. The matching wine programme across ten courses, opening with an English sparkling wine and including the Oliver Zeter Sauvignon Blanc Fumé, adds meaningful value if you drink wine. At £££, the ten-course format with pairings is the version of Faru most worth returning for.
Yes, at £££ for a five or ten-course tasting menu with matching wines, Faru holds its value. The Michelin Plate 2025 recognition is a grounding reference point: the kitchen, led by Jake Siddle (previously nine years at Newcastle's House of Tides), executes at a level that justifies the spend. For comparable money in the North East, you are not getting the same precision of cooking or the front-of-house depth that Laura Siddle's team provides.
The open kitchen format works in your favour as a solo diner — you have something to watch and the counter dynamic, where it exists, gives you a natural anchor. The well-spaced circular tables also avoid that cramped, self-conscious feel some tasting menu rooms impose on solo guests. It is a more comfortable solo proposition than many rooms at this price point.
Book at least three to four weeks out for weekends; midweek lunch may have more give. Faru is a small, considered operation — not a large restaurant with rolling availability — and its Michelin Plate status has sharpened demand. Check availability early, especially if you want the ten-course format with wine pairings.
The exterior on Silver Street is deliberately low-key, so do not mistake understated for unambitious. You are choosing between a five or ten-course tasting menu at lunch or dinner — there is no à la carte option, so commit to the format before you book. The meal opens with Parmesan shortbreads and ends with coffee and petits fours, so budget time: this is a two-plus-hour experience.
The ten-course menu is the stronger argument for the price. Five matched wines are included, opening with an English sparkling wine, and dishes run from pork beignet with apple and vanilla custard through to a hazelnut parfait with banana sorbet — the kitchen uses bold flavours like Sichuan pepper and Kampot pepper without losing control of the plate. The five-course lunch format is a lower-commitment entry point if you want to trial the kitchen before committing to the full run.
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