Best Places to Eat in Frome, Somerset

Scandi-pasti sharing boards at The Fat Radish

Best place for chocolate in Frome – Choc et al

This family-run gourmet chocolate shop is on Cheap Street, one of the quaintest spots in Frome (there’s even a little stream cut into the street’s flagstone floor). Choc et al stocks a range of carefully produced local chocolates, including toasted pistachio and cinnamon milk chocolate from Seven Hills in Bath and peanut and caramel chocolate salami sticks from Wiltshire’s Coco Chemistry. Stop by in the summer for a soft-serve ice cream made with Ivy House Farm organic Jersey milk – it comes drizzled with melted chocolate, or bejewelled with sprinkles. In the cooler months it’s all about Choc et Al’s real hot chocolate, or there are thick banana milkshakes to enjoy (with a dairy-free option for vegans).

A black cone topped with a swirl of white ice cream — Stop by in the summer for a soft-serve ice cream made with Ivy House Farm organic Jersey milk

Best restaurant in Frome – Bistro Lotte

At the top of pretty Catherine Street, Bistro Lotte is an unpretentious bistro with bedrooms to boot. Expect classic French dishes (charcuterie platters, moules frites, coq au vin and boeuf bourguignon – locally sourced meat comes from butcher J Cayford next door) as well as a few surprises such as aubergine and potato croquettes.

Best bar in Frome – Palmer Street Bottle

At bottle shop, cheese store and tap bar, Palmer Street Bottle, you can eat and drink in, or take away. The bar has a selection of craft beers and ciders, as well as wines and spirits. Try a Somerset rarebit (made with local cheddar) with a bottle of the house brew, Bear Cub IPA.

Best market in Frome – The Frome Independent

During The Frome Independent, an indie market that runs each month from March to December, streets are closed off to make way for antiques, crafts, food stalls and families dancing on the ‘village green’. Graze on dosas from Dosa Tom, Ah-Ma’s dumplings or an epic waffle from The Bubble Wafflery.

Best dessert café in Frome – Café La Strada

At the end of medieval Cheap Street, which has a stream trickling down its middle, Café La Strada’s main selling point is its ice cream and sorbet counter. Made fresh in-house using organic Ivy House Farm milk from nearby Beckington, flavours are a mix of regular (pistachio, rich chocolate) and seasonal (jasmine and honey).

Best pub in Frome – The Three Swans

For a pint of Ashton Press cider and a homemade scotch egg or pork pie, head to The Three Swans, a 17th-century pub in the centre of the town with a cosy, sociable atmosphere. Its Sunday lunches are epic.

Best brunch in Frome – The River House café

Despite an impressive selection of cakes (shout out to the fresh chai and pear doughnuts), brunch is what The River House café does best. Try the french toast with goat’s cheese and figs, or the vegan brekkie with crispy coconut ‘bacon’, marinated tofu, wilted greens, mushrooms, potato, avocado and homemade beans.

Best breakfast bowl, poké and juice bar in Frome – Nook

Run by Millie Clifford and Jake Andrew, who met while working at Bruton restaurant At The Chapel, Nook was dreamt up on the beach in Byron Bay. What Frome needed, the couple mused, was decent, healthy takeaway food that was affordable and quick. The locals agree. Whether queuing up for a sit-in cold-pressed juice (try the green one – a refreshing slick of kale, apple, celery, cucumber and mint) or standing in line for a smoothie and a gluten-free beetroot and cacao brownie to takeaway, this appropriately named café (it’s tiny) is unswervingly busy.

The menu is short but neat, with breakfast bowls served from 8am to 4pm (acai, bircher muesli, house granola or cacao and nut butter) and poké bowls served from noon to 4pm; choose one base (rice, noodles or citrus kale salad), one main addition (salmon, tuna, chicken, tofu or beetroot), one sauce (the eight flavours include sriracha mayo and ponzu) and one topping (spicy peanut, nori and sesame or crispy onions). In winter there are ramen-style noddle bowls too.

We tried the tuna poké bowl with nutty brown sushi rice, zingy ponzu dressing, a smattering of toasted peanuts and black sesame seeds, some expertly diced mango, a curl or two of shaved cucumber and a smidge of soy. It was the real deal, the flavours subtly vibrant, the presentation artfully precise.

Throw in a handful of enthusiastic young staff, a zeitgeisty provision of vegan and veggie options and on-message eco awareness and you’ve got the perfect recipe for Frome’s missing foodie link.

@nooktheshop

'A dose of zingy lunchtime freshness: Nook's tuna poké bowl

Best bakery in Frome – Rye Bakery

Inside a restored church, Rye Bakery is one of the most family-friendly spots in town. Enjoy an americano and a slice of the legendary vegan chocolate cake while the kids explore the indoor playground. Take away a loaf of artisan bread, then return for a pizza or a venison flatbread with harissa, Hurdlebrook yogurt and pickled red cabbage.

Where to stay in Frome

Babington House, Somerset

The original cool country house hotel, Babington, was one of the very first Soho House Group properties to open. Tucked away down an avenue of trees outside Frome (check out our foodie guide to the best places to eat and drink in Frome here), in the Somerset countryside, the honey-stone 18^th century manor house is part members’ club, part hotel (it’s open to all but there are reduced rates for members). All of the hotel’s 33 rooms are atmospheric and beautifully, if femininely, styled. For groups of friends, the old gatekeeper’s lodge, at the end of the main drive, is a self-contained, three-bedroom cottage. In all the rooms, the detail is the impressive thing: full-length mirrors come as standard,, chargers are provided for laptops and phones, hot water bottles are supplied for chillier nights, full-size Cowshed toiletries in the bathrooms and homemade chocolate chip cookies in the minibar.

Entertainment is in plentiful supply. Within the extensive grounds, you’ll find a gym, two swimming pools (one indoors, under a beautiful timber-trussed ceiling, the other a sleek outdoor number fringed by a giant L-shaped green-and-white striped lounger), tennis courts, a football pitch, croquet lawn, cricket pitch, beautiful sage-green, leather-seated bikes to borrow, a cinema and a sauna, hammam and steam rooms. Overlooking the extensive kitchen garden there’s also a full-service Cowshed spa (book a marhalika massage, an intense but deeply relaxing and unusual treatment that blends Swedish and Thai methods – think sports massage mixed with acupressure).

For dinner, book a window table in the main restaurant, the Orangery, and enjoy sweeping views of the lawn and the lake through towering Georgian windows while you eat. If you want a more casual supper, head to the bar to snack on spiced cauliflower fritters and Scotch eggs or sit down to imaginative salads (Castlemead chicken with spiced chickpeas and harissa yoghurt), wood-fired pizzas and pub favourites. The sprawling breakfast buffet is not to be missed, and nor is the complimentary afternoon tea spread out in the deli each afternoon – impossible to resist.

Check rates and availability at mrandmrssmith.com