Public voting opens for Brighton's best loved food and drink awards on 1st February 2024
Brighton, UK – 1st February, 2024 - The launch of the BRAVOs is now an established date in the Brighton foodie diary. Brought to you by Restaurants Brighton, there’s no doubt that Brighton’s best loved food and drink awards have truly hit their stride as they enter their seventh year this February.
One of the things that makes the BRAVOs special is they are the only awards in town where the public gets to vote - and decide the winner - in every category! Any local restaurant, cafe, bar or pub can enter and anyone can vote for them making the BRAVOs truly inclusive. Last year we had record numbers of venues and record number of voters, with 58,000 public votes for 600 venues! This year we expect 700 venues to enter.
The big emphasis for this year's BRAVO’s is celebrating our wonderful community, adopting the anthem ‘Sussex by the Sea’ to lead the narrative of the social media campaign. We’ll hear first hand from the people of Sussex about where they eat and drink, after all the winning votes will be cast by them. Expect to see some notable Brighton faces celebrating our rich and wonderful hospitality community.
This year we will also be taking guidance from the University of Sussex to help us establish what is sustainable, so criteria for entering the ‘most sustainable category’ is better quantified.
Nominations and New Categories
The Bravos are currently taking nominations from the public as well as from venues themselves. Nominations can be made here.
This process generates incredible diversity with nominations spanning the best known city-centre restaurants as well as ‘secret’ neighbourhood favourites - resulting in the top 20 destinations for each of the BRAVOS 18 categories. The BRAVOs team is expecting 700 + venues to be nominated in 2024 and there are an additional two categories this year to hopefully represent a better cross section of what the public would like to vote for, plus the categories showcase the many arms of the hospitality industry.
Every year, since their launch in 2017, the BRAVOs winners pages become a hugely useful resource for the local community and the millions of visitors that are drawn in by the city’s world-renowned hospitality. It’s easy to see why the top spots are hotly contested by competing businesses. Behind the scenes, the small but mighty BRAVOs team are gearing up while nominated venues are ‘game-planning’ for the launch.
International Sponsors
This year’s categories have had a mini 2024 makeover - with newbies like Best Lunch, Best Sussex Restaurant and Best Coffee being added to the mix. This is to include different kinds of businesses in this annual celebration of the hospitality scene. As always, we’ve got exciting sponsors on board championing the categories, including local and national businesses. Uber Eats - BRAVO’s headline sponsor - will also sponsor the Best Restaurant and Best Takeaway categories.
Confirmed sponsors:
Best Restaurant - Uber Eats
Best Sussex Restaurant - The Menu Partners
Best Lunch - Good Noise
Best Vegan Food - The Sussex Shortlist
Best Cocktails - Goldstone Rum
Most Family Friendly - Brighton Fringe
Best Team - Table Talk Foundation
Best Takeaway - Uber Eats
Best Sussex Pub - Alliance South East
Best Sunday Roast - Preston Insurance Brokers
Best Wine List - Gusbourne
Best International Food - Restaurants Brighton Jobs
Most Sustainable - Designs Woodcraft
Eat Well For Less - Restaurants Brighton Weekly Offers
Best Brighton Pub - The Cheese Hut
Best Brighton Cafe - Woodfire Camping
Best Brunch - Tip Jar
Best Coffee - Industry Discounts
Vote online from 1st February
The BRAVOs launch on 1st February (this Thursday) and voting runs for six weeks. Winners will be announced on 28th March. During the voting window, the public are called upon to give their favourite venues a BRAVO. All voting is done through the BRAVOs website where you can vote for as many or as few categories as you want, with only one vote for each category.
The Winner of each category will receive an iconic Sussex made, sustainable BRAVO wooden trophy, while the top 20 will be placed and listed on the winners’ page.
Easy Voting
The BRAVOs website is super easy to use for voters to navigate. Choosing and voting for a favourite venue takes less than a minute, so there’s no excuse not to!
The BRAVOs - local awards supporting local businesses
BRAVO founder Nick Harvey, said:
“Brighton hospitality is continuing to thrive against all the odds and we’d like to think that the BRAVO’s has a part to play in its continued success. Every year we see new businesses nominated which shows us the food scene in Brighton and beyond is burgeoning and exciting. The thousands of votes from the public shows the local community is passionate about the amazingly good food and drink available in the city.”
The results always reveal a mix of exciting newcomers and predictably great establishments. Last year, saw the public vote Burnt Orange as BRAVO’s Best Restaurant 2023 - holding on to the top spot for a second year - can they make it a triple? Who is going to be their biggest contender?
Best Restaurant is by far the most prestigious of categories - the winners draw in diners both nationally and internationally so it is all to play for. Former winners of the best restaurant BRAVO include Duncan Ray’s Little Fish Market (2019) and Steven Edwards’ etch. (2018). We’re excited to see who will be the champion of 2024!
Eat, vote, win
During the six week voting period, all the restaurants get busy on their social media trying to entice in votes, this is such a fun campaign to witness with lots of content opportunities. We’ll be sharing the best of these on all of our platforms Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok to keep the energy up over the 6 weeks. Last year we counted in a massive 58,000 votes and we’re aiming for more this year! The BRAVO’s will also be running a prize giveaway as an extra incentive to get the votes cast - a chance for a voter to win £200 to spend at a venue of their choice. The winner will be picked randomly and announced alongside the winners.
2023 Winners Quotes - What is it like to win a BRAVO?
Oeuf - Amber (Best Cafe Winner)
It was a huge accolade to have won this award after being open for such a short period of time, especially opening mid pandemic, being recognised for all of the hard work that the team has put in since opening, made us feel like the hard work was really worthwhile! It has put us even stronger on the map than before.
Bonsai Plant Kitchen - Dominic (Plant Champions Winner)
The BRAVO awards has massively helped put Bonsai Plant Kitchen on the map, and without these independent awards it is very hard for small businesses to stand out in such a competitive market. It's also great that the BRAVOs are voted for by the people, meaning it is a very true representation of how the public feel. We are very grateful to be included in the BRAVOs and hope to be a part of it every year.
Fayaz - Kitgum Kitchen (Best International Cuisine Winner)
We were filled with joy! We felt really thankful that people voted for us, it was all a bit surreal to be honest!
Paul - Fourth and Church (Best Wine List)
A wonderful recognition for the business and especially the team’s hard work! It’s always lovely to be well-received and for people to like what you do.
Awards and achievements lead to more people coming through our door, which in turn, enables us to carry on moving forward, engaging with exciting producers and raising our game with what we offer…..A win-win!
Nicky Hedley - Brighton Regency Routemaster (Best Afternoon Tea)
Winning Best Afternoon Tea in 2023 was such a wonderful achievement for us and made us feel like our hard work had been recognised. Especially as there are so many wonderful places to have afternoon tea in Brighton! I think it’s really raised the profile of the business and gave the whole team a happy boost of confidence.
Aoife Sweeney - La Choza (Winner of Eat Well For Less)
I love the BRAVO Awards because it's the customers' vote and that's got to mean the most really! Winning the Eat well for Less really was important to us, especially now during these hard financial times and it has really validated what our team works so hard at. Our ethos has always been to provide healthy, tasty, competitively priced Mexican street food and for it to be a place where everyone feels comfortable.
Key Dates
Launch date: 1st February 2024
Voting closes: March 14th 2024
Winners announced: 28th March 2024
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