The story
In the heart of Royal Tunbridge Wells, Tallow has earned its place as a Michelin Recommended restaurant by focusing on the essentials: exceptional ingredients and precise technique. The menu changes monthly, capturing the season’s finest and ensuring each visit offers something new. Diners can choose from an à la carte or tasting menu at both lunch and dinner, with a set-price lunch available Tuesday through Friday. Recent starters include pepper cured halibut with pickled cucumber and dijonnaise, while mains might feature treacle-marinated barbecued rump of beef with oxtail and Roscoff onion.
For a more intimate evening, Tallow’s Chef’s Table is an experience unto itself. Located in a private dining room seating just eight guests, this is the definition of table-side cooking. The chef prepares a seven-course tasting menu entirely at the table, talking through ingredients and techniques as they work. Guests describe it as “fully immersive” and “unique,” with one visitor noting, “the food was stunning and explained so well by our chef.” It’s a shared table, dinner-party style, with a sit-down time of 7:30pm on Friday and Saturday evenings. The tasting menu is priced at £130 per head, with an optional wine flight.
The restaurant itself is described by guests as “elegant, comforting, and welcoming.” A wood burner adds warmth, and the small dining room is noted for its lack of pretension. Service is consistently praised as knowledgeable and attentive, with staff who “really knew their stuff without any pretensions.” Tallow’s modern cuisine is presented with care, and the souvenir tasting menu—sealed with black wax—adds a stylish touch. As one guest put it after a birthday dinner, “Presentation is fabulous—Michelin standard of course.” Tallow is open Tuesday to Saturday for lunch and dinner, with tables bookable 90 days in advance.
Recognition
Ambience
Details
History
In the leafy environs of Southborough, not far from Royal Tunbridge Wells, Tallow won our Best Local Restaurant award for 2023 . To judge from the avalanche of nominations we have received in 2024, local love for it remains as ardent as ever. Rob Taylor has taken the lineaments of the fine-dining approach and stamped his own identity on it, within the flexible framework of either a three-course monthly changing carte or a full taster comprised of those dishes marked with an asterisk. In an ambience of simple small tables and bare brickwork, this is more than just a place to eat: according to one confirmed regular, 'it's a gathering spot where friends and neighbours come together,' a true neighbourhood resource. What they return for is cooking that is full of intense, savoury energy and which recognises no culinary boundaries, as indicated by a starter of Indian-inspired tandoori-cured monkfish with yoghurt, almonds and mint. Right next to that, Mexico gets a look-in for pulled ox-cheek barbacoa with tomatillo relish, sour cream and a corn taco. Mains might whisk diners to east Asia for wild sea bass and kohlrabi with choi sum, chilli jam and coconut sauce, while Spanish and Levantine influences play in a dish of Ibérico pork presa sauced with cider, served with merguez sausage, sweetcorn fritters and tomato chutney. An English cheese such as Oxford Blue is served with sweet accompaniments, maybe burnt honey and thyme ice cream, as a halfway house for those who don't wish to go full-spectrum dessert with the likes of Kentish cherries poached in plum sake with white chocolate crémeux and chocolate sorbet. To accompany, there are some intelligently chosen global wines at keen prices. A party of eight might take the tasting menu in the stylishly dark-toned 'chef's table' room on the first floor.
Location
Instagram