Endo Kazutoshi’s 10-seater flagship, Endo at the Rotunda above the old Television Centre in London’s White City has been voted the UK’s best restaurant in the carefully curated annual Harden's Top 100 Best UK Restaurants diners’ poll.

In the West Midlands region, five restaurants made it into the elite Top 100 list, with Opheem in Birmingham climbing the ranks into this year’s Top 10. The restaurant is Brum’s most commented-on destination in the annual diners’ poll thanks to Aktar Islam’s cooking “taking Indian cuisine to a new and exalted level” with “totally outstanding flavours and presentation” that have landed it as the nation’s number 6. Opheem’s Jewellery Quarter comrade The Wilderness has also made a reappearance in the elite list at number 90.

Grace & Savour, Hampton-in-Arden is another returning jewel in the West Midlands’ culinary crown that has jumped up the list from last year’s 100 to this year’s 30, fully justifying the pivot the property made a couple of years ago from a more conventional country-house experience to this very contemporary venture built into the walled garden of the Hampton Manor house.

Fraiche (61) is a new entry for the region having relocated from the original site on the Wirral to rural Shropshire. Marc Wilkinson “greets, cooks, explains and serves a range of incredible dishes in his new venue near Oswestry”: part of his home and now more in the format of a chef ’s table experience than during his days in Oxton. As yet he is also unlicensed, so you can BYO which is regarded as “an incredible boon with a meal of this quality.”

And the locally lauded Upstairs by Tom Shepherd in Lichfield completes the West Midlands’ contingent as another new entry to the Top 100 at 63. Diners applauded the 28-cover venue which lies above Tom’s father’s jewellery shop for its “smart, flawless cooking with personality” (“the skill in elevating the ingredients is something I hadn’t experienced in a long time”). “Casual and relaxed, but with a genuine buzz about the place” – all the diners’ reports are full of enthusiasm giving particular praise to the service which is “warm and knowledgeable, from people who clearly love what they do”.