We've Been Nominated for Britain's 100 Best Pubs 2026
I've had to read the email three times to believe it. The Rising Sun has been nominated for The Good Food Guide's Britain's 100 Best Pubs 2026.
I'm not going to pretend I have some polished, professional reaction to this. I'm sat writing this with a cup of tea gone cold, genuinely a bit overwhelmed. So bear with me while I try to put into words what this actually means.
This pub has been standing here for nearly four hundred years. Grade II Listed, dating back to around 1630 — a proper 17th-century free house, right on the water in Portmellon Cove. I only found out the full history myself a few weeks ago, and there's something quite emotional about knowing that whatever's happened here this year, we're just the latest chapter in something that's been part of this cove for centuries.
Three years ago, this pub was struggling. I won't dress that up. It's taken every bit of graft, every late night, every hard conversation, to turn it around. So a nomination like this isn't just nice — it's proof that the work has actually meant something.
None of this happens without the team. Jules, who runs that bar like nobody I've ever seen — genuinely the engine room of this place. Si, Piab and Jack in the kitchen, quietly building a food offer that people now drive to Portmellon specifically for. Louise who runs the restaurant like the absolute star that she is. Lottie and Elliot, my daughter and her boyfriend, who between the two of them will turn their hand to literally anything the pub needs on any given day. Tim our amazing cleaner who turns up everyday and does more than cleaning, my regular all round hero. Livvy and Sam, who've told our story online better than I ever could, and who are raising two little ones above this pub while doing it. My dad - Pops to everyone, still fixing anything that so much as creaks. And everyone else behind the bar, in the kitchen, and front of house who's shown up, shift after shift, and made this place what it is.
And none of it happens without you. Every single person who's booked a table, ordered a pint, tried Selkie Cove for the first time, stayed in The Green Room or The Blue Room, or just wandered in because you were passing and the door was open — you're the reason a nomination like this exists at all. Somebody, somewhere, thought enough of this place to put us forward. Whoever you are — thank you.
What happens now? Nominations for Britain's 100 Best Pubs 2026 close at 11:59pm this Thursday 13th August — so there are two days left where every single nomination still counts, both for making the list and for the Readers' Choice Award, given to whichever pub on the list gets the most nominations. If you've ever had a meal, a pint, or a night here that meant something to you, this is the moment to say so — it takes two minutes on The Good Food Guide's nomination form (https://www.thegoodfoodguide.co.uk/best-of/best-pubs/nominations).
So if you've got a memory of this place — a wedding, a birthday, a Sunday roast, a pint watching the tide come in — please, nominate us before Thursday. And if you've already done it, thank you. Truly.
Here's to whatever October brings. We'll be right here, on the beach, doing what we do.
Kelly x
