Delifonseca Dockside, Liverpool, best restaurant in North West

DELIFONSECA Dockside has been named the North West's regional winner in the Good Food Guide's Reader Awards. 

It is one of 10 winners from around the UK and will now go forward to a final head-to-head to crown the national Good Food Guide Readers’ Restaurant of the Year. 

Delifonseca Dockside has been open for three years down at Brunswick Dock and has wooed diners and non-diners alike.

Accolades

It boasts a restaurant run by the fairly legendary Martin Cooper and an extensive delicatessen which includes a branch of multi-award winning butchers Broughs. 

Delifonseca Dockside MenuIt is the latest in a long line of accolades for owner Candice Fonseca and her team who opened the original Delifonseca in Stanley Street in 2006. 

If there any more proof needed that eating out has captured the imaginations of the British public like never before, a whopping 39,000 food-loving members of the public put forward their favourite restaurants, pubs and cafés from around the UK.

To qualify for the awards, aimed at championing local neighbourhood restaurants, establishments need to be independently run and offer regional or local produce where possible.

The Good Food Guide says Delifonseca fought off stiff competition from others in the North West to scoop the win for the region.

Moon

Candice Fonseca, says she is thrilled to win the award. “It is a privilege to be even entered into The Good Food Guide so it’s amazing to have been voted Readers’ Restaurant of the Year for the North West by our customers," she said.

Delifonseca Dockside's
deli and butchers“The whole team are absolutely over the moon. It's great when their enthusiasm, passion and skills are recognised formally. I have a fantastic team that spend every day working hard to spread the word of great food and equally good service. I’m really proud of them all.” 

Martin Cooper's food has been a favourite in Liverpool for decades. He came to the city in the mid 1970s, to study architecture, and got into cooking by accident, working for Paddy Byrne and Dave Scott at the Everyman Bistro.

Cooper went on to set up the Armadillo Tea Rooms, at the Liverpool School in Mathew Street. This later evolved, with him, as an upmarket, French-influenced, a la carte restaurant. He later ran the kitchen at the London Carriage Works.

Elizabeth Carter, Consultant Editor of The Good Food Guide, added: "Together with the original in Stanley Street, the newer Dockside Delifonseca has raised the bar for deli-restaurants in this country. Informal, passionate, with a something-for-everyone appeal, it offers a varied menu that champions high quality seasonal produce at reasonable prices. Here at The Good Food Guide we are very proud to name it as our Readers’ Restaurant of the Year award winner for the North West.’

The overall Good Food Guide Readers’ Restaurant of the Year 2014 will be announced at a ceremony in central London on June 19.

Our review of Delifonseca Dockside here