A CHESTER restaurant is celebrating after being named by The Good Food Guide for a second consecutive year.

Covino, located on Northgate Street, has been listed among the ‘100 Best Local Restaurants’ in the UK for 2024, and is one of 13 Northwest locations selected in this year’s list.

The popular restaurant, which is known for its varied collection of delicious small plates and eclectic wine menu, began life as a small wine bar & shop in 2016, before relocating to Northgate Street two years later.

Owner, Chris Laidler said: “We got put into [the Good Food Guide] last year without knowing a huge amount about it and so as the year progressed, and we started to learn more about some of the other restaurants that had been included that year we felt a growing sense of pride.

“It’s great to be amongst some really recognised names across the country but also some lesser-known restaurants that people maybe wouldn’t have heard about.

“A lot of restaurants rely on PR and I don’t really like that to be honest. I’d rather just trade on our merits as a restaurant and with that stubborn philosophy, you often see other’s get the limelight, but it’s nice to get something like this that is based on what we’ve achieved as a restaurant.”

A unique atmosphere

This year, The Good Food Guide received an astonishing number of nominations from diners across the country, all keen to champion their favourite places to eat. An unprecedented 60,000 votes were cast, leaving the Guide’s team of expert inspectors the tasty task of anonymously eating in a vast number of restaurants.

On the qualities which make Covino unique, Chris said: “It’s the buzz and the atmosphere.

“I have [Climat in Manchester] that we opened and it’s totally different in dimension, but the offering is fairly similar, and I’m told all the time - which is great to hear but also a little frustrating - that Covino is the better of the two,” he laughs.

“I’m not sure what to say to that, other than that I do kind of agree. It’s small and intimate, with a one-chef kitchen that you can see from almost anywhere in the restaurant.

“I think people want to be somewhere that has personality and you can feel the beating heart of it when you’re sat there and all the little cogs that make it work are turning.”

After almost a decade in the heart of the city, Chris says that the restaurant has maintained a core of customers who have been there from the beginning.

 “We’ve still got people who visited the original shop, before we moved, who’ve watched the business develop and evolve and go through some tricky times.

“And likewise, I’ve seen how their lives have been shaped over the last eight years and that group of regulars is growing. It’s been fantastic.

“It’s now under the very capable supervision of [manager] Becky Jenner who’s put her own spin on the service and has developed her own regulars too.”