The story
The Cross, at 16 New Street in Kenilworth, near Coventry, is a modern British restaurant that holds a Michelin star for 2026. The kitchen works inside a traditional pub, serving elevated pub classics alongside dishes shaped by the chefs' travels abroad.
Chef director Adam Bennett leads the kitchen and sets its approach: classic technique, with ingredients given room to speak. Produce comes largely from Mill Piece Gardens, which grows vegetables for the restaurant from spring to autumn. Meat is sourced from Aubrey Allen butchers, and the sourdough is baked to the restaurant's own recipe.
Reviewers single out a beetroot salad with goat's cheese and raspberry vinaigrette, and chalk stream trout with cucumber and a mild horseradish buttermilk cream. Plaice over crushed potatoes arrives with wild mushrooms and Tasmanian black truffle. The meal ends with a hazelnut soufflé, served with Chantilly cream.
There are two dining rooms, one with a view of the pass and another with dark red button-back leather banquettes. In summer, the shaded terrace fills with flowering pots. The bar serves pints and cocktails, with plenty of alcohol-free options. The wine list is arranged by grape, and the house wines come from Georges Duboeuf in Burgundy.
Recognition
Details
History
3 Rosette Award for Culinary Excellence
High quality cooking
There’s something reassuring about The Cross. This isn’t a kitchen that anxiously twists and turns classic combinations for the sake of it; it celebrates ingredients, knowing that loin of lamb is peerless when cooked pink and served with French beans, charlotte potatoes and lamb jus, or that a crisp duck egg, soft-yolked, is equally glorious with crushed celeriac and cep sabayon or peas, bacon and baby gem. Chef-director Adam Bennett, lauded by one Midlands peer as ‘a real chef’s chef’, sets a professional tone at this much-loved Kenilworth restaurant. It filters through the smart front-of-house team so that eating here feels special. The shaded terrace with abundant flowering pots is a delightful spot for a summer lunch, but you can keep an eye on the pass in one dining room, or sink into the traditional comfort of dark red button-back leather banquettes in another, if you prefer. To begin, a perfect sphere of crimson radish and a cherry tomato, its bottom severed so it stands up straight, can be scooped deliciously through deep-gold mayo; house sourdough with Ampersand butter, and a pair of cheese croquettes are exemplary. With the three-course carte costing £80 (a six-course tasting menu is £105), unexpected snacks are an appreciated touch. Follow with beetroot salad, classically served with goat's cheese and a sharpening raspberry vinaigrette, or chalk stream trout, fresh with cucumber from the nearby no-dig Mill Piece market garden, plus a mild horseradish/buttermilk cream. Crushed potatoes under milky-soft plaice come with a tangle of wild mushrooms and a power-shower of devilishly luxurious Tasmanian black truffle which ripples through the sauce too. Finish with a hazelnut soufflé so fairy-light it seems to evaporate on the tongue, its sweetness tempered by Chantilly cream. The notable wine list is arranged by grape and shows well-placed love for Burgundy's Pinot Noir, but encourages exploration that might lead to the minerally, lime-juice freshness of a Polish Hill Riesling made in tiny volumes by the Grosset organic/biodynamic winery in Australia's Clare Valley, or a minimal-intervention Touriga Nacional from Langhorne Creek which could please followers of Cabernet Sauvignon’s sultry, black-fruit personality.
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