Dishing it out: The hottest new restaurant critics

Winner: Jane Middleton, 46, freelance cookery-book editor

The Garrick's Head

8 St John's Place, Bath, tel: 01225 318 368

Attached to Bath's Theatre Royal, the Garrick's Head has been through various incarnations, including a spell as home to Beau Nash, Georgian Bath's eccentric master of ceremonies. Now it's been taken over by Charlie and Amanda Digney, the couple responsible for transforming the tiny, boarded-up King William on the other side of town into an exemplary little local, and a gastronomic beacon.

The new décor would scarcely meet with the flamboyant Nash's approval -wooden floors, junk-shop mirrors, and a miscellany of plates and cutlery - but you'd like to think the menu might. It quietly favours the kind of British food that barely exists any more. Hence you might find potted hough, boiled bacon with cabbage, and Bath chaps with green sauce - dishes that rely on decent ingredients and a patient hand in the kitchen for their success.

Slow cooking is certainly a strong point: the Bath chaps are succulent, sweet and unashamedly fatty, their richness cut by a briskly flavoured green sauce, while slow-roast mutton has the giving texture and gutsy taste that result from long, unhurried hours in a gentle oven. Fish dishes are deftly handled, too, and sometimes accompanied by sublime chips cooked in goose fat. To finish, puddings such as a crisp and chewy treacle tart or a dish of tangy Yorkshire rhubarb and custard round things off appropriately.

It's pub dining without pretensions, put together with a close eye on what works rather than what's in fashion. And it brings to mind a line from Desperate Housewives, when Bree's teenage son complains, "Why can't we just have food instead of cuisine?" The Garrick's Head undoubtedly serves food rather than cuisine. The antithesis of art on a plate, it's crying out to be eaten rather than merely admired. And, remarkably, at around £25 a head, it's the sort of place where you can afford to eat pretty often.

Runner-up: Mike Court, 51, retired advertising copywriter

Vecchio Parioli

129 Aldersgate Street, London, EC1 Telephone 020 7253 3240

The walls are covered with hideous paintings for sale that never sell. The room is undistinguished, the flowers on the tables cheap and cheerful. But Angelo makes it all worthwhile. He is the padrone par excellence: charming, welcoming and simpatico.

Just after my mother died, I decided that I needed to go out: not to talk particularly, but to be in the presence of people. I went to the Vecchio and sat in the corner and, halfway through lunch, I lost the plot completely and couldn't stop weeping. Despite the fact that the restaurant was heaving and the staff were up the wall, Angelo came and sat with me and - silly word - comforted me. And when lunch was over and I asked for the bill, there wasn't one.

Vecchio Parioli is simply the archetypal Italian. From a kitchen the size of an airing cupboard comes a procession of classic old-fashioned Italian nosh.

If you want lukewarm spinach, supercilious service and minute plates of over-priced pasta, go elsewhere. But if you want a proper prawn-and-avocado cocktail and the best cannelloni in the world, just come here, as so many local people do. In fact, Vecchio is so special that you should make it your local Italian. Wherever you live.

And thank God that you're lucky enough to have a proper neighbourhood restaurant. In fact, Vecchio is so special that you should make it your local Italian. Wherever you live.

Runner-up: Gareth Roberts, 40, editor of a Dubai lifestyle magazine

Y Bistro

Llanberis, North Wales, tel: 01286 871 278

Shouldering itself into the rain on a quiet corner of Llanberis, Y Bistro squares up to the legendary Pete's Eats café across the village high street. Brightly lit on the inside and brightly coloured on the outside, the boisterous café caters to climbers and hillwalkers' cravings for scalding mugs of tea and massive chip sandwiches. Full of tables crammed with like-minded, soaked-to-the-skin outdoor types, it has the no-frills camaraderie of an army mess hall, all chip fat and steam.

Across the street, Y Bistro is conspicuous by its silence, and - for the most part of the day - darkness. There is no lunch; the net curtains and framed menu cards are so understated that the restaurant looks like a façade - if this were Hollywood it would be a respectable front for an entrepreneurial crime lord.

But come the evening, the lights go on and radiate warmth onto the wet pavement; booking is always recommended, essential at weekends. The owner, Danny Roberts, is a genial man sporting a bow tie who potters around while you enjoy a pre-dinner gin and tonic, affording you a moment or two to think about doilies. His wife Nerys, unseen, works some kind of voodoo in the kitchen. The dining-room is comfortable: waterfalls and lakes by local artists hang on the wall reminding us of the beauty of the Welsh countryside - although the hammering rain outside does a pretty good job of that, too.

During the 1980s, Y Bistro deservedly won a fistful of accolades and was regarded as one of the best restaurants in Wales. It still is. The food is sublime; all ingredients are sourced locally, including the outstanding cuts of organic best end of lamb, brills from the Irish Sea (Pôb Tewleden), Anglesey pheasant (Coediâr Môn) and Snowdonia cheddar (Caws Eryri). The watercress soup and pâté du foie gras starters were excellent, the wine (an affordable French burgundy) did its job, loosening our desire to ever leave the table.

How a restaurant of this standard has survived the fickle day-tourist dollar over the years is a mystery, but then the owners' sheer love of good food and belief in local produce go a long way to explaining it. Y Bistro customers are loyal and deeply aware that if there's only one great restaurant in this damp county then you'd better make the most of it. s

This award was judged by the Independent on Sunday's Terry Durack and Skye Gyngell; managing director of toptable.co.uk, Chris Wood; and David Hume of Glenfiddich. The winners of the Glenfiddich Food and Drink Awards will be announced tomorrow. For results go to www.glenfiddich.co.uk/foodanddrink