Restaurant in Winchcombe, United Kingdom
Small room, serious food, strong value case.
A husband-and-wife Modern British restaurant in Winchcombe with consecutive Michelin Plate recognition (2024, 2025) and a Google rating of 4.7 from 150 reviews. At £££, it is the strongest dining option in the immediate area — small and intimate by design, best suited to couples or small groups looking for a considered meal in the Cotswolds.
The most common assumption about 5 North St is that it is a pleasant-enough village restaurant doing safe, serviceable food for tourists passing through the Cotswolds. That reading is wrong. This is a husband-and-wife operation that has earned consecutive Michelin Plate recognition (2024 and 2025) for concise menus built on regional ingredients. It is small, yes, but small here is a feature rather than a limitation. If you are visiting Winchcombe and want a genuinely considered meal rather than a pub supper, this is where you book.
The room at 5 North St is intimate in the way that actually affects how an evening feels. This is not a sprawling dining room where the energy dissipates across thirty tables. The compact scale creates the conditions for attentive, personal service and the kind of quiet conversation that a special occasion demands. The physical setting is a Georgian market town address, which means low ceilings, character proportions, and a room that rewards slowing down. If you are planning a celebration dinner or a serious date and want atmosphere that does not require loud music or theatrical room design, this format suits you. It is not a venue for large groups, and that constraint is worth knowing before you try to seat eight people.
5 North St holds a Michelin Plate, which Michelin awards to restaurants serving food of good quality: it sits below Bib Gourmand and star status but is a meaningful credential, particularly for a restaurant of this size in a small Gloucestershire town. The menus are concise, which in practice means the kitchen is not over-reaching. Regional ingredient sourcing keeps the cooking grounded, and classic combinations are the framework rather than experimental plating. This is Modern British cooking with clarity and restraint: the kind of food that tastes like it has been thought about without announcing itself constantly. If you are expecting avant-garde technique or tasting-menu theatre, adjust expectations. If you want well-executed, regionally sourced food in a room that takes the meal seriously, this delivers.
No dedicated drinks data is available in Pearl's records for 5 North St, and fabricating a drinks programme would be misleading. What can be said with confidence is that a Michelin Plate restaurant in this price bracket (£££) operating with concise menus and a regional sourcing philosophy typically pairs its food with a considered wine list weighted toward Old World producers. The intimate room format and special-occasion guest profile suggest this is not a cocktail-led venue in the way a standalone bar would be. If a strong cocktail programme is central to your evening, Winchcombe does not yet have a deep bar scene to draw on — see our full Winchcombe bars guide for the current options. For the wine dimension, the Cotswolds sits close to several small English wine producers, and a kitchen with regional sourcing values may well reflect that on the list, but verify directly with the restaurant before building an evening around it.
At the £££ price point with Michelin recognition and a small room, 5 North St is not a walk-in proposition. Moderate booking difficulty is the realistic expectation: not the three-month wait of a starred London destination, but not a same-week table either. Book at least two to three weeks ahead for a weekend dinner, more if you are targeting a specific date for a celebration. The restaurant is in Winchcombe, a small Cotswolds town, so factor in the logistics of getting there: it is most practical by car, and accommodation in or around Winchcombe is worth arranging rather than assuming a late train works. See our full Winchcombe hotels guide and our full Winchcombe experiences guide to build the visit into a proper trip.
Compared with the £££££ London benchmark — CORE by Clare Smyth, The Ritz Restaurant, or Restaurant Gordon Ramsay , 5 North St costs significantly less and demands far less forward planning. You are trading room grandeur, multi-course tasting formats, and sommelier depth for something more personal and considerably more accessible. That trade works in 5 North St's favour for most Cotswolds visitors who are not making a dedicated dining pilgrimage.
Within the broader category of destination neighbourhood restaurants outside London, the more instructive comparisons are places like hide and fox in Saltwood or Hand and Flowers in Marlow , Michelin-recognised, regional, husband-and-wife or small-team operations where the room is tight and the cooking is the draw. 5 North St sits in that same category. If you want something more ambitious in format, Midsummer House in Cambridge or Opheem in Birmingham are driving-distance options with starred credentials. If you are prepared to build a full weekend around the restaurant, L'Enclume in Cartmel and Moor Hall in Aughton represent what the very leading of the regional British restaurant category looks like. 5 North St does not compete at that level, but at £££ in a Cotswolds village, it is not trying to.
| Detail | 5 North St | Hand and Flowers (Marlow) | hide and fox (Saltwood) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cuisine | Modern British | Modern British | Modern British |
| Price range | £££ | ££££ | £££ |
| Michelin recognition | Plate (2024, 2025) | 2 Stars | 1 Star |
| Setting | Small Cotswolds town | Thames-side village | Kent village |
| Booking difficulty | Moderate | High | Moderate–High |
| Room size | Small/intimate | Pub-style, relaxed | Small/intimate |
| Leading for | Couples, celebrations | Serious food fans | Special occasion |
For more context on eating and drinking in the area, see our full Winchcombe restaurants guide and our full Winchcombe wineries guide.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Awards | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 North St | Modern British | £££ | This long-standing neighbourhood restaurant, run by a husband and wife, is a hit with the locals; it might be small inside but it’s big on character. Concise menus feature regional ingredients in classic combinations.; Michelin Plate (2025); Michelin Plate (2024) | Moderate | — |
| Restaurant Gordon Ramsay | Contemporary European, French | ££££ | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| CORE by Clare Smyth | Modern British | ££££ | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| The Ledbury | Modern European, Modern Cuisine | ££££ | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Sketch, The Lecture Room and Library | Modern French | ££££ | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Dinner by Heston Blumenthal | Modern British, Traditional British | ££££ | Michelin 2 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
Comparing your options in Winchcombe for this tier.
At £££, it sits in the mid-to-upper range for the Cotswolds, but the Michelin Plate recognition — awarded two consecutive years (2024 and 2025) — signals this is not food you are simply paying a postcode premium for. Compared with £££££ London restaurants with equivalent Michelin attention, 5 North St offers meaningfully better value. The case for booking is strongest if you want ingredient-led Modern British cooking in a characterful room without the London bill.
The room is small, and small rooms fill fast at Michelin-recognised price points. Book at least 2 to 3 weeks ahead for a weekend table; midweek may give you more flexibility, but do not assume availability. Walk-ins are a gamble not worth taking when the dining room is as compact as this one.
The intimate scale of 5 North St works against larger parties. This is a venue suited to tables of two to four; if you are planning a group of six or more, confirm capacity directly with the restaurant before committing. The character of the space is built around a small, neighbourhood feel, which larger groups can disrupt or simply not fit.
It is a husband-and-wife operation in Winchcombe, a small Gloucestershire market town, so expectations should be set accordingly: this is not a high-footfall city-centre restaurant, and the room reflects that intimacy. Menus are concise and feature regional ingredients in classic combinations, per Michelin's own description. Come for cooking quality and a genuinely local atmosphere, not a grand dining room or extensive à la carte selection.
Winchcombe itself has a limited restaurant scene, so the realistic comparison set is broader Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds. For a step up in formality and price, Cheltenham has options in the same Modern British direction. If Michelin recognition at a lower price point is the priority, a Bib Gourmand holder elsewhere in the region may offer better value-for-spend, though 5 North St's two consecutive Michelin Plates make it the strongest current case in its immediate postcode.
Yes, with the right expectations. The intimate room, husband-and-wife ownership, and Michelin Plate standing give it the credentials for a birthday or anniversary dinner. It works particularly well for two people who want a genuinely personal experience rather than a formal event in a large dining room. For a milestone celebration requiring a private dining space or a large table, the room size may be a constraint.
No menu format details are confirmed in Pearl's records for 5 North St, so a direct verdict on a tasting menu is not possible without risking inaccurate claims. What is documented is that menus are concise and ingredient-focused, which often points to a short fixed or prix-fixe format rather than an extended multi-course tasting structure. Check the current menu directly before booking if this is a deciding factor.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
