Michelin names The Punch Bowl Inn, Cumbria pub of the year

The Punch Bowl Inn in Crosthwaite, Cumbria, has been named the pub of the year in Michelin's Eating Out in Pubs 2009 guide.

The guide, which lists 563 pubs in Great Britain and Ireland, praised the Punch Bowl for its "delightful rural setting" as well as its community spirit and use of local produce.

More than 10% of the pubs listed in Michelin's guide are located in London including two of Gordon Ramsay's pubs the Narrow in Limehouse and the Devonshire in Chiswick, which were chosen as favourites.

However, Ramsay's third venture, The Warrington in Maida Vale, failed to make it into the guide.

Derek Bulmer, editor of Michelin's Great Britain & Ireland and London guides told the Evening Standard inspectors "simply didn't eat as well" in the Warrington as they did at The Narrow and The Devonshire. "It was the least interesting of Ramsay's pubs," he said.

Bulmer added: "The standard of cooking in British and Irish pubs keeps getting better and better. We are seeing a growing confidence in our culinary heritage, greater use of local, seasonal ingredients and a rediscovery of regional specialities."

Michelin's Eating Out in Pubs 2009 guide is now available priced £14.99.

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By Kerstin Kühn

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