You need a restaurant list, and every download you find is a scraped lead file
Restaurants, cafes and takeaways in one area, by type, in a spreadsheet you can sort: for supplier prospecting, market mapping or research. What the search results offer instead is broker files of unknown provenance with an email column you did not ask for.
Preview restaurants by council and type See the food hygiene dataset
What is happening
Freelance marketplaces sell UK restaurant databases in Excel by the hundred thousand rows, and paid scraper tools exist because the official hygiene API throttles bulk pulls and silently ignores some filters.
The Food Standards Agency already publishes every rated food business with its type and local authority as open data. The missing piece is a list-shaped, filterable version of it.
What it disrupts
- A prospect or market-mapping list becomes a choice between a scraped file and merging official data by hand.
- Broker files bundle personal contact columns, which changes the legal footing of the whole list.
- Coverage and freshness are unknowable in a scraped file; a closed restaurant that is still listed costs a wasted visit or call.
Why it happens
- The FSA publishes ratings for food-safety compliance, one feed per local authority, not as a business directory.
- The official API is built for one lookup at a time and caps or throttles bulk requests.
- Nobody's remit is the merged, filterable national list, so brokers and scrapers fill the gap.
Checks to make now
- Decide the population: restaurants and cafes, takeaways, pubs, or every food business in an area.
- Decide the area level: a local authority, a postcode area, or nationwide with a rating filter.
- If one business's current status matters, check its live FSA rating page before acting.
Where DataScoop fits
DataScoop carries the FSA register for England, Wales and Northern Ireland: 552,886 rated food businesses, last imported on 2026-08-24, with business type, hygiene rating, address and local authority on every row.
Filter by local authority, business type (for example Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen or Takeaway/sandwich shop), hygiene rating and postcode area. Preview 25 rows free, then download the full filtered list for £4.99, or query the same filters through the API or MCP.
Where it fits, and where it does not
Good fit
- Suppliers, wholesalers, equipment and service providers, and researchers who need a defensible, current list of food businesses by area and type.
- Anyone who needs the hygiene rating alongside the business, for example to target compliance or improvement services.
Not the right fit
- Owner or manager names, emails or mobile numbers: the register is organisational and DataScoop never adds contact enrichment.
- Menus, prices, opening hours or reviews: the register does not carry them.
Proof and boundaries
Coverage is England, Wales and Northern Ireland under the FSA scheme. Scotland's FHIS results are a separate DataScoop dataset with a different rating scale.
Business type is the FSA's own classification, so a restaurant registered as a pub or hotel appears under that type.
DataScoop inherits the publisher's lag and any duplicates or closed businesses still present at source; the import date is visible on every page.
There is no customer outcome claim yet. The proof is the visible filter set, free preview, source date and FSA attribution.
Questions people ask
Is this every restaurant in the UK?
It is every food business rated under the FSA scheme in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, filtered by the business type the FSA assigned. Scotland is a separate dataset on DataScoop with its own Pass and Improvement Required scale.
Can I get takeaways only, or pubs only?
Yes. Business type is a filter, so Takeaway/sandwich shop, Pub/bar/nightclub, Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen and the other FSA categories can each be listed on their own or combined with a council and a rating.
Does it include emails or phone numbers?
No. The register is organisational: business name, type, address, postcode, local authority, hygiene rating and rating date. DataScoop never adds contact enrichment.
How current is it?
The page shows the current DataScoop import date. The FSA publishes updates on its own schedule and closed businesses leave the list when the FSA removes them, so check a live rating page when one business matters.
Get the restaurants in your area as a list
Start with a council and a business type. Preview the rows free before deciding whether the full list is useful.
Preview restaurants by council and type