Verdict: Goodfellows is the grown-up restaurant in the group: seafood-focused, technically assured and intentionally more formal than the average Wells lunch stop.
The current menus show exactly where the kitchen’s strengths lie: mackerel with lentils and pickled apple, cod brandade, hake with fresh tagliatelle and Champagne sauce, scallops with Mediterranean vegetables and chorizo, plus a five-course tasting menu built heavily around fish.
Recent diners are particularly positive about the cooking and the value of the lunch menu. The room is small enough for service to feel personal, and the open-kitchen heritage gives the food more personality than a generic ‘special occasion’ restaurant.
Best for: seafood, anniversaries, long lunches and anyone who appreciates classical sauces without wanting a stuffy dining room.
Worth knowing: vegetarians are catered for, but this is still fundamentally a fish-led restaurant. Go elsewhere if the whole table wants plant-based choice.
GW&B rating: 4/5. Skilled, generous and one of Wells’s safest special-occasion bets.