Best restaurants in Bruton: where locals eat and drink

A festive visit to Bruton

Whether absorbing art at the Hauser & Wirth or Bo Lee and Workman galleries, or browsing in Bruton’s stylish interiors and lifestyle stores, such as Philo & Philo, Smouk or New Romantic , this boho Somerset town is a chilled enclave in which to recharge before a busy Christmas period – with carols, craft stalls and late shopping. It is a tasty retreat, too. Renowned for restaurants such as Michelin-starred Osip (see below), Italian Da Costa, artisan bakery, wood-fired pizzeria and all-day restaurant, At the Chapel, Matt’s Kitchen, and nearby communal barn dining experience, Horrell & Horrell. Seasonally wrapped in a huge bow (and promising eye-popping decorations at its Blue Ball pub, too), boutique hotel, Number One certainly gets into the Christmas spirit. It recently launched a new restaurant, Briar, with chef Sam Lomas. Should you feel the need to walk off any gastro-indulgence, Bruton has many brilliant walking routes on its doorstep, as does nearby National Trust estate, Stourhead. Its Christmas light trail returns from November 29.

Da Costa

Bruton’s Durslade Farm has replaced Roth Bar and Grill with Da Costa, a space inspired by Veneto, powered by Somerset. Traditional northern Italian dishes make up the menu, much of the veg and herbs for which are grown in the walled garden and cooked on the centrepiece woodfire stove and barbecue. A celebration of the two regions is seen in carpaccio of Durslade Farm beef and Cornish Yarg; handmade buckwheat pasta with fonduta and salt-baked beetroot risotto with toasted hazelnuts and Bruton soft cheese. To drink there are wines from Durslade Farm’s vineyards and amaro, aperitivi and Italian-inspired cocktails. Artwork features vintage photographs of the owner’s grandfather, whose Venetian roots are the inspiration for the restaurant. da-costa.co.uk

Osip

In a new location, this tiny farm-to-table restaurant showcasing hyper-local producers is a community affair. Two nearby farms and an orchard grow the majority of Osip’s ingredients, others provide surplus fruit and foraged ingredients. There is no formal menu – what’s served depends on what’s available and good each day, starting with snacks and raw or preserved vegetables, breads and broth, then series of larger plates – examples might be scallop with roe satay sauce and thai basil; and spider crab with courgette, gooseberry and meadowsweet – and desserts. osiprestaurant.com

At The Chapel

This light, elegant space proves not only that chapels can be stylishly and successfully converted in the right hands, but also that great food is to be found in the most unlikely of locations. In this case, much of that food comes from the giant wood-fired oven at the front of the building. There's also a bakery space that sells fresh loaves and cakes (among them, commendably, a no-profit loaf designed to make good quality, nutritious bread available to all), and a simple but carefully sourced menu of pizzas – try the Taleggio, field mushrooms and thyme topping.

If you’re not a pizza fan, there’s plenty else to tempt, from cos, feta, fennel and almond salads to chargrilled local chicken with lemon, thyme and aioli. This is relaxed, modern food for a relaxed modern crowd (families are very welcome), many of whom book into one of the bedrooms above the restaurant and make a weekend of it. There’s also a wine store on site, with an interesting selection of single-estate wines, and a programme of films, talks and events to tap into. atthechapel.co.uk

Horrell and Horrell

This micro-dining experience sees the eponymous Horrells, chef Steve and host Jules, welcome 20 people to a communal dinner in an open-fronted barn at their home. Using produce from their 6.5-acre smallholding (fruits and nuts, myriad vegetables, even home-reared lamb) and select regional, artisan suppliers (Chapel Cross goat’s cheese; Buffalicious mozzarella; Brown & Forrest smokery), Steve creates a seasonal, four-course menu in his bespoke outdoor kitchen. A southern European influence is clear in dishes such as artichoke fritti, basil mayonnaise and parmesan, or rosemary and garlic lamb, cime di rapa, chilli and pangrattato. horrellandhorrell.co.uk

Caro

For a small village in deepest Somerset, Bruton punches above its weight in both food and shopping terms. You can combine both of those interests at Caro, a stylish lifestyle store/studio/b&b on Bruton’s High Street that's central to the town’s booming creative scene. Once you’ve browsed Caro’s covetable goodies (including Scandi interiors by Ferm Living), walk further down the street to reach a secluded one-room garden house b&b. Guests are given vouchers for a cooked breakfast at At the Chapel during their stay (try the Somerset baked ham with green eggs and sourdough toast), and it's worth popping into Fifty High St. on the same street for a browse of its functional (but still chic, somehow) homewares and kitchenwares. carosomerset.com

Matt’s Kitchen

Run by self-taught chef Matt Watson in what was formerly the front room of his house, this intimate restaurant (it seats only 26) serves a single main course dish on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings, plus a choice of starters and desserts. Check the website for the current week’s menus – expect everything from Kenyan chicken and coconut curry to cod masala with fennel bhajis. One note of caution: it’s sometimes closed altogether for private functions. mattskitchen.co.uk

Groceries

As you might expect, Bruton’s general stores are anything but run of the mill. Up on the High Street, Bill the Butcher has joined forces with Spar and now runs a meat and cheese counter in one half of the shop and a grocery in the other (including boxes of More Wine’s refillable wines). Then there’s Gilcombe Farm Shop just outside town. facebook.com/billthebutcherbruton

Westcombe Dairy

Two of Bruton’s local food champions, Tom and Richard Calver at Westcombe Dairy, produce award-winning cheeses from their own herd of Holstein-Friesian cows (most famously a seriously tangy, nutty Cheddar, but also a Caerphilly and a Somerset Ricotta) using traditional techniques. Despite their appreciation for age-old techniques, the Calvers are anything but Luddites. In recent years they’ve built a cheese cave, pioneered the use of tiny microchips for cheeses, and commissioned the UK’s first cheese-turning machine, affectionately dubbed Tina The Turner. westcombedairy.com

The Newt

Visit The Newt, a stunning hotel and garden attraction between Bruton and the town of Castle Cary. Koos Bekker and his wife Karen have planted orchards, restored the gardens and turned the Palladian mansion into a hotel, and there's even a shiny state-of-the-art cider-making facility, complete with daily apple-pressing shows. The Garden Café here is a contemporary vision of glass and wood that overlooks the kitchen garden. Its seasonal menu has been designed as a gardener's notebook, and head chef Alan Stewart makes sure that the garden's fruit and vegetables are the headline acts. Even the bread and butter is on-message – the sourdough starter is made from apple pulp from the cider press, and the buffalo milk butter is flavoured with preserved orange and thyme from the garden. thenewtinsomerset.com

Find more boutique hotels for food lovers here.

Where to stay in Bruton

Durslade Farmhouse, Somerset

Set among 1,000 acres of boundless Somerset countryside, this 18th-century farmhouse is the perfect place to squirrel away for the weekend, with everything you need directly on your doorstep. Located on the grounds of the Hauser & Wirth estate there’s no surprise that the farmhouse is peppered with exclusive artworks. No two rooms are the same – with each of the six bedrooms curated with unique charm and enchanting vintage pieces.

Enjoy a welcome hamper overflowing with Somerset’s bounty –from farm-made jams to chocolate-dipped honeycomb from the beehives and pickles made by in-house forager Kenny Jelfs. Milk-washed margaritas and stiff martinis are within walking distance of the farmhouse with the conveniently placed Roth Bar found only across the courtyard. In the private dining room enjoy an intimate experience from Roth Bar's executive chef James Jesty. Using ingredients hand-picked from the walled garden or meat reared on the farm, James’s cooking boasts big flavours with unique twists on seasonality. If you’re after something more laid-back and alfresco, then you only have to throw open the back doors to the sprawling hills and light up the Big Green Egg on your patio – the on-site farm shop can furnish you with all the trimmings for a perfect BBQ. It has everything you need, from succulent meat cuts from the farm to foraged pickles to pimp your burger. The farmhouse can be your cosy retreat or your boujee party house for the weekend but, whatever the occasion, you needn’t walk further than 100 metres to satisfy your appetite.

Sleeps 12, from £850 a night to hire the entire farmhouse. dursladefarmhouse.co.uk/the-farmhouse/

Number One Hotel

Number One is a revamped Georgian townhouse that offers 12 bedrooms and a sense of playfulness behind the polish. On the ground floor is an honesty bar and a lounge lined with photographs taken by the likes of Terence Donovan and Perry Ogden, while legendary garden designer, Penelope Hobhouse, is behind the hotel’s tiny courtyard garden.

In the Georgian townhouse itself, designers Frank & Faber have decorated the bedrooms with a tasteful riot of pattern on pattern, plus period fireplaces and gilt mirrors. For a more modern feel, a trio of cottages behind the main house (overlooking the courtyard garden) have simple white bathrooms, quarry-tiled floors and neutral colour schemes, reflecting their former status as workshops. Four extra bedrooms, industrial in style, are at the end of the garden in what was previously a forge.

Breakfast, taken in Osip (see entry above), is totally unique in terms of its offerings. Try vanilla-spiked rice pudding topped with homemade granola and a spoonful of toffee-ish milk jam; still-warm boiled egg cradled in a little nest of hay; pheasant terrine and chutney on freshly baked sourdough; or a sliver of jammy pear and quince tart. numberonebruton.com

Words by Rhiannon Batten, Lucy Gillmore and Laurie Newman

Photographs by Maureen Evans and Rhiannon Batten

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