![\"Hope](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_Hope-street-Liverpool-Photo-by-Colin-Lane.jpg\")
Hope Street is one of Liverpool’s most famous roads that is full of great pubs(Image: Colin Lane\/Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\nThe region’s pubs haven’t featured in list of the top 100 and reporter Ryan Paton thinks Merseyside has once again been overlookedHope Street is one of Liverpool’s most famous roads that is full of great pubs(Image: Colin Lane\/Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\n
So, here we go again. Another list has been published in celebration of Britain’s great pubs. This one has been compiled by The Good Food Guide and is in tribute to those pubs that serve both “proper food” and “proper beer”.<\/a><\/p>\n The awards are in partnership with classic cask ale company, Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, and, fittingly for the Yorkshire-founded brewery, it was a pub in Leeds that came out on top with The Highland Laddie triumphing. This is nothing against the Yorkshire pub’s victory, as the boozer’s inspiring story seems to be well deserved recognition against the backdrop of a struggling hospitality industry.<\/a><\/p>\n A couple poured their savings into restoring the historic pub in Leeds City Centre from becoming a dreaded vape shop<\/a> earlier this year and what they’ve done with the place looks incredible, and means it will certainly be a destination whenever I’m next at the other end of the Canal.<\/p>\n No, I suppose the bigger gripe comes from the other 99, as it’s an example of what seems to be a growing trend among these national round-ups, with how Merseyside has been entirely omitted. Now, we’re self-aware enough to know that nothing should be handed to you.<\/p>\n However, Merseyside pubs are part of the lifeblood of our culture and have made the region a destination for people from all over the UK. The criteria for this particular award is that it must serve an incredible selection of food and drink.<\/a><\/p>\n Admittedly, a lot of Liverpool’s great pubs prioritise the booze and pub aesthetic over the food, which means they wouldn’t be applicable for this particular list.<\/p>\n But, even in the city centre, you have venues such as The Blackburne Arms<\/a> and Dog and Collar that serve both amazing food and drink.<\/p>\n Personally, the Ship and Mitre is always one of my favourite eating experiences as the novelty of ordering high-quality food through a hatch in a pub will never get old. Just this month, the acclaimed One Pan Band was even offering such delicacies as a smoked haddock rarebit for drinkers in the Dale Street pub.<\/p>\n Over the water in Wirral<\/a>, there is a range of beautiful country house pubs that seem more in keeping with the other options that feature on the list. Among these are the Fox and Hounds in Barnston, The Red Fox in Thornton Hough and The Ring O’Bells in West Kirby<\/a>, and that’s just to name a few.<\/p>\n The 100 Best Pubs list is the inaugural one from the Good Food Guide. The Good Pub Guide has previously recognised a Merseyside pub that doesn’t feature in the selection published today.<\/p>\n A review of The Sparrowhawk in Formby<\/a> previously read: “A wide choice of food includes sandwiches and ‘light bites’, summer vegetable risotto, ham hock hash cake with fried egg and piccalilli, Vietnamese-style ribs, braised shoulder of lamb with minted crushed new potatoes and rosemary gravy, sweet potato, aubergine and spinach Malaysian curry with coconut rice and pak choi, Cumberland sausages with mash and gravy, and puddings such as hot waffle with boozy cherries and vanilla ice-cream and chocolate and orange tart with passion-fruit sorbet.”<\/p>\n This was a point highlighted in a piece published on these very pages last year<\/a> when Merseyside was omitted once again from another round-up in Estrella Damm’s list of the top 50 gastropubs in the UK<\/a>.<\/p>\n While Merseyside is never a region that will turn down the challenge of raising standards and always wants to improve, it’s also true that the pubs in the region are good enough to shout about.<\/p>\n Why this is continually ignored in the best of the country round up is now something I’ve started to expect, but the reason remains a mystery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The region’s pubs haven’t featured in list of the top 100 and reporter Ryan Paton thinks Merseyside has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,179,15650,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-536579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-liverpool-pubs","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115460498570937557","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Inside](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_DH__THE_SHIP_AND_MITRE-1.jpg\")
Inside The Ship & Mitre pub on Dale Street in Liverpool city centre(Image: Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\n