Returning home after the success of their acclaimed Anglesey restaurant The Marram Grass, the Barrie brothers (Ellis and Liam) created a space for a homegrown audience in as iconic a location as you can get in this city. Tucked under the arches of the Royal Albert Dock, you’ll find a menu that emphasises provenance and seasonality. It’s not cheap, but plates represent good value for money, with delicate, precise presentation and thoughtful, fresh flavours reigning supreme. For a more affordable meal, book a three-course lunch and tuck into a lighter take on signature dishes.

Maray’s Bold Street branch (there are three outposts across the city) is a sliver of a restaurant that sees diners squeezed cheek-by-jowl onto the long wooden table at the centre of the intimate dining space. Plates are small and to be shared, but petite in name only. The generous servings embrace loud-mouthed flavours, with Levantine ingredients and a rainbow of seasonal vegetables. Seafood and meat are sparsely used, but where they appear feel precisely chosen – scallops atop butternut squash purée, for example, scattered with a pistachio dukkah, or a lip-fizzingly fiery harissa fried chicken. The star of the menu is the local produce: date molasses-sweetened aubergine shawarma, tahini-doused ‘Disco’ cauliflower and biting roasted broccoli plated up with preserved lemon. If you’re struggling to make a selection, start with the whipped goat’s cheese and Muhammara bread, plus a delicately balanced cocktail to kick off your evening – the salted pear and tequila sipper is sensational.

Liverpudlians are Scouse by name and Scouse by nature – at least, if ‘you are what you eat’ holds true. It’s a chicken-and-egg controversy as to whether scouse stew or the famous moniker arrived first in the city. Even more contentious are claims over where the best meat-and-veg one-pot is served (although most Scousers would claim their nan’s reigns supreme). While Ma Boyle’s Alehouse and Maggie May’s Café Bar are the grande dame scouse-makers, those in the know are hotfooting it to Allerton’s latest opening, Skaus, which started out as a pop-up and market stall and where Scandi-inspired flavour notes complement the rich scouse stew. The venue has adapted to pandemic opening hours by offering salmon gravadlax ready to go alongside kilo bags of nourishing scouse that celebrate the magic of brown comfort food.

Arrive early on handsome Falkner Street in order to grab a pavement table for your alfresco breakfast – thanks in part to its enviable location on the city’s most distinguished road, The Quarter’s bistro seating fills up fast. Morning visitors can enjoy a breakfast menu street-side under mint-green candy-striped awnings while witnessing the parade of pampered pooches that frequent the café and tucking into eggs royale or an avocado smash with a creamy cappuccino on the side. It’s Parisian mornings, Scouse-style.

Heading down Bold Street under the rosy skies of a 7:30am start, early risers drift towards the earthy aromas spilling from Bold Street Coffee. This antipodean-style café offers all the minimalist chic of a Melbourne joint, with records spinning, a changing roll call of independent artists pegged to the whitewashed walls and simple but excellent coffee. Recently refurbished (after a Kickstarter campaign was launched to save the business), BSC has returned to its post as the coffee house of Liverpool’s creative scene. This is the place where everyone who’s anyone grabs their morning cup of joe.