Two chefs in Bristol have been branded ‘ones to watch’ in the Good Food Guide 2025. Kyu Jeong Jeon and Duncan Robertson, who own Dongnae, on Chandos Road were crowned winners of the category at an award ceremony at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London tonight (February 3).
The awards were hosted by TV presenter and keen restaurant-goer Richard Bacon. The chef duo, who also run the popular Korean restaurant Bokman in Cotham, say they crated Dongnae to ‘raise the bar of Korean cooking in the UK even higher’, with a ‘refined menu’ that draws inspiration from Kyu’s upbringing in Korea, and their time spent living in Seoul as a family.
Kyu and Duncan were working on the concept and menu for more than two years before opening in September 2024. Their aim was to push the fermentation elements of their dishes and creating even more Korean staples from scratch’, including artisanal doenjang, gochujang and makgeolli (Korean rice ‘beer’).
Read our reviewer’s five-star verdict of her visit to Dongnae
Other chefs in the category included Jake Dolin of Manteca in London, Elliot Hashtroudi of Camille in London and Sam Lomas of Briar in Somerset.
The guide also named Osip, a tiny farm-to-table restaurant in Bruton, Somerset, as its Restaurant of the year. The restaurant is owned by Merlin Labron-Johnson and focuses predominantly on vegetables that he has grown on a nearby farm as well as wild herbs and local game.
There is no menu offered but the kitchen cooks a sequence of dishes for each diner based on what has arrived from the farm that morning. In January 2021 Osip was awarded a Michelin star, after only eight months of trading.
Bristol’s Wilsons was also shortlisted in the awards for best value set menu.