The Best Pubs in Leicestershire

The Blue Boar at 16 Millstone Lane, LE1 5JN, is the pub that people who care about beer in Leicester will name first. It opened in 2016 on the ground floor of a former office building in a conservation area, and it is named for the inn where Richard III is said to have spent his last night before Bosworth. It runs up to nine cask ales: house beers from Leatherbritches, Exit 33 and Beowulf, and at least half a dozen guests from anywhere in the country. It is a single light room with the bar opposite the door, and behind the counter a glass partition lets you see straight into the cellar, which is a quiet way of telling you the beer is looked after. Board games on the shelves, old maps of Leicester round the walls, and no music. Food is local pork pies and well filled cheese or ham cobs, and that is the whole menu.

The Rutland and Derby in the Cathedral Quarter is a different proposition: red brick, four beers on tap including Everards, artisan pizzas, and a roof terrace that is one of the better places to drink outside in the city.

The Globe on Silver Street has been a pub since 1720, and beer was once brewed on site using water from a well that is still there.

The Knight and Garter took a £1.4 million renovation and won its county in the National Pub and Bar Awards. It is a smarter room than the others here and priced accordingly.

The Nevill Arms at Medbourne is the one to build a day around. It is an old coaching inn and stable yard beside the village brook in the Welland Valley, about fifteen minutes' drive from Market Harborough, and it made the Daily Mail's hundred best pubs in Britain in 2024. Grade II listed, nineteenth century, stone mullion windows, oak beams and an inglenook fireplace. There are ten bedrooms if you want to make a night of it: six in the original stone building and four in the old stable block above the courtyard. The courtyard has a Josper grill bar, and there is a river terrace beside the brook, which is where you want to be sitting in July.

Hercules Revived at Sutton Cheney is a coaching inn near Bosworth Battlefield, the obvious stop if you have spent the morning walking the field.

The Baker's Arms at Thorpe Langton is thatched, dates from 1851 and made the UK's top 100 gastropubs list in 2023. It is small and it books up, so ring ahead rather than turning up.

The Griffin at Swithland is run by the cricketers Stuart Broad and Harry Gurney, and sits in one of the prettiest villages in the county on the edge of Charnwood.

The Bluebell has an old skittles alley and a beer garden worth the detour in summer.

The Berkeley Arms at Wymondham is the one to know. It is a sixteenth century free house at the point where Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire meet, and it holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, which is the guide's mark for good cooking at fair prices rather than fine dining. The kitchen cooks to order from local suppliers and the real ales change weekly, which is not something every pub with a Michelin listing bothers with.

The Stag and Hounds took Great Food Club's Dining Pub of the Year in 2020 and holds a Bib Gourmand of its own.

The Joiners in south Leicestershire is a whitewashed building with a reputation that has held up for years.

The Cow and Plough at Oadby occupies a set of old farm buildings on the edge of the city, with locally brewed beer, jazz lunches, and a farm shop and distillery next door. It is a Steamin' Billy pub, which in Leicestershire means the beer will be looked after.

The Anne of Cleves in Melton Mowbray was built in 1384 as a house for the priests who ministered to the leper hospital at Burton Lazars, and was later gifted to Anne of Cleves as part of her divorce settlement. Its walled garden is one of the better ones in the county.

The north of Leicestershire has its own CAMRA branch and its own scene, and it is where the beer is best right now.

The Organ Grinder in Loughborough took both Pub of the Year and Traditional Pub of the Year from the Loughborough and North Leicestershire branch in 2026. It is Blue Monkey's own pub, which is about the surest guarantee there is that the beer will be right, and it is the sister of the better known Organ Grinder on Canning Circus in Nottingham.

Moonface Brewery and Tap, also in Loughborough, took Micropub of the Year and Cider Pub of the Year in the same round of awards. Brewing on the premises and keeping a serious cider list is an unusual combination and worth going out of your way for.

The Wheeltapper in Loughborough came second for Pub of the Year, and the Anchor Inn at Walton on the Wolds came third, which is a fair indication of a village pub doing something right.

Two more from the same list: the Swan Inn at Mountsorrel, third for Traditional Pub of the Year, and the Tap at No.76 in Ashby de la Zouch, second for Micropub of the Year. The Hall Croft Tap in Shepshed came third in that category, which is worth knowing if you are already in Shepshed for the two pubs this site has written up.

Everards is the county's brewery and has been since 1849, when William Everard went into business with the maltster Thomas Hull and the two of them leased a small brewery on Southgate Street in Leicester. It now supplies more than 140 pubs in the county and beyond, including the Greyhound out at Hawkesbury Junction on the far side of Coventry.

Tiger is the one you will see most often. It was first brewed in 1972, it is the official ale of Leicester Tigers, and the name honours the Royal Leicestershire Regiment rather than the rugby club. Beacon Hill is the other one to look for.

Steamin' Billy, Charnwood, Langton and Moonface all brew in the county and turn up on guest pumps. Working through the villages, the local pump clip is usually the one to go for.

The brewery moved to a new site at Everards Meadows, on Cooper Way near Enderby on the edge of the city, and the Beer Hall came with it. It is the largest taproom in Leicestershire, it serves brunch, lunch and dinner rather than just beer and crisps, and you drink your pint of Tiger in sight of the tanks it came out of.

The site runs to seventy acres of open ground with walking and cycling routes, which makes it a genuinely different proposition from a brewery tap on an industrial estate. It is the easiest thing on this list to reach by car and the hardest to reach without one.

With one afternoon and a car, drive out to Medbourne, walk a stretch of the Welland Valley and finish at the Nevill Arms. If you would rather eat properly, point the car at Wymondham and the Berkeley Arms instead, and book first.

With one afternoon and no car, the Blue Boar and the Rutland and Derby are about ten minutes apart in Leicester and both worth an hour. The Globe is on the way between them.

With a day and a rail ticket, go to Loughborough rather than Leicester. The Organ Grinder, Moonface and the Wheeltapper are all walkable from the station, and between them they hold most of the 2026 branch awards.

Leicester is a little over an hour from London St Pancras and about half an hour from Nottingham, and Loughborough is on the same line. The city pubs are all walkable from Leicester station.

Everything in the village sections needs a car or a taxi. There is no useful evening bus to Medbourne, Thorpe Langton or Wymondham, and that is worth working out before rather than after the second pint.

Village kitchens in this county keep shorter hours than city ones and several stop food entirely between lunch and evening service. If you are driving half an hour for a meal, ring first. The Baker's Arms and the Berkeley Arms in particular are small enough that a Saturday without a booking is a wasted trip.