Somerset Restaurant Guide

Adam & Martin Fellows’s “homely”, “small bistro” continues to inspire nothing but good vibes. “Very friendly and competent staff” deliver “good quality”, “expertly prepared” French food in “copious portions”. In 2024 it will hit its twentieth anniversary.

“Excellent food in a converted former bank” is the ‘elevator pitch’ for this November 2021 newcomer from Nicholas Balfe, Mark Gurney and Matt Bushnell of south London’s Levan and Larry’s. Initial reports are upbeat all-round on all aspects of the 30-cover dining room in the original vault, complete with open kitchen and bookable diners’ counter. Or you can now also eat on the newly added outside terrace (also available for drop-in coffee, drinks and snacks) and next year will see the opening of seven bedrooms.

“Love this place” – set in historic Hadspen House and its famous gardens (operated since 2019 as a luxury hotel, shop and restaurant by South African billionaire Koos Bekker and his wife Karen Roos, an ex-editor of Elle Decoration). It’s “beautifully done”, and the “wood-panelled restaurant in the old house, with its candlelit atmosphere”, makes an ideal setting for “a wonderful, surprising tasting menu”, which is “certainly not your usual country house hotel food” – and which includes pairings with cider produced on the estate. (“Perfect on a late summer evening as the sun finally sets after some great pre-dinner cocktails”).

“A local ‘go-to’ restaurant” where co-owner Richard Guest is at the stoves, and where “there are always some surprise choices on the excellent modern European/French menu”. Co-owner Cedric Chirrosel runs the front of house, with dining in the courtyard in warmer months.

“Kind of a romantic and fantastic Scandi-Bristolian take on dining!” – “You’d have to go a long way to replicate this really original experience”, where you eat in the “special location of a marvellous Victorian walled garden with lovely views (of the Mendips)”. There’s a “very individual” menu prepared by head chef Mark McCabe with 14 courses for £150 per person: “just superbly executed, if expensive”.

This “beautiful” eighteenth-century chapel was converted 15 years ago into an all-day restaurant-with-rooms, artisan bakery and wine shop, centred around a “fantastic” modern dining room. (In August 2022, after our annual diners’ poll concluded, founder Catherine Butler sold the business to the Stay Original Company, which has five other boutique hotels and pubs in the southwest, and pledged to carry on without major changes).

“Every mouthful is divine” at ex-Portland and Clipston chef Merlin Labron-Johnson’s “tiny restaurant in rural Somerset” that “dares to be different” – serving a set meal with no menu, “so you just sit back and await the surprises (you receive a menu sheet at the end of the meal)”. “I was absolutely stunned by the intensity of flavours, the simple presentation and responsible sourcing of ingredients”. “Some ingredients I had never tasted before, and the flavour pairings were creative and so exciting” – “what an incredible surprise, superb from start to finish”.

This “canteen in a converted barn” with “one or two more upscale menu items – for example, smoked local trout and excellent Devon scallops, with very good chips” – is attached to the rural gallery of Swiss contemporary art dealers Hauser & Wirth, and is named after Dieter Roth: one of the artists they represent. The venue kick-started their Artfarm hospitality spin-off, which has spawned rather grander projects in Mayfair and Los Angeles, and last year snapped up London’s Groucho Club.

“Excellent food at very reasonable prices” is the proposition at this townhouse with a focus on local West Country produce. Chef-patron Sasha Matkevich, who has lived in England for almost 30 years, was inspired to cook by the food he ate as a child at his grandmother’s house in the foothills of the Caucasus mountains in southern Russia.

“Fantastic for a foodie weekend” – this comfortably boho country-house hotel in the Mendip Hills from the Pig group owes its vibe to the shabby-chic interior designed by Judy Hutson, wife of Robin Hutson (ex-Hotel du Vin and Soho House) who founded the chain a dozen years ago with backing from Ineos billionaire Jim Ratcliffe. The 25-mile kitchen sourcing regime results in some “amazing local ingredients” on the table.

“This is how you treat great produce with care and respect and create beautiful things!” – so say fans of Mary Glynn and Pegs Quinn’s Italian-influenced two-year-old in Southville, whose “excellent” cuisine is informed by Pegs’s 18-year stint at the Hammersmith’s famous River Café. “Service is good and the place is lively and noisy (but some softening of the acoustics might help)”.

“Tiny restaurant but amazing food!”. Elliott Lidstone (ex-Ortolan and Hackney’s The Empress head chef) and his wife Tess opened their 14-seater spot “in two shipping containers at Bristol harbour’s Cargo development” in 2016, and it has become one of the city’s gastronomic highlights, earning national fame. Their 45-bin seasonal wine list is also a winner (with bottles available on a retail basis).

“The inventive food is amazing” at this dockside container venue, which flips the usual omnivore convention and casts vegetables as the stars of the show, with meat or fish in supporting roles. Part of Josh Eggleston’s Eat Drink Bristol Fashion operation, the venue is run by chef Rob Howell and his partner Megan Oakley (both ex-Pony & Trap). Reporters say they’re “made to feel welcome – nothing is too much trouble”.

“Sister restaurant to Bravas, with similar inventiveness” – “you get brilliant tapas, in a noisy, converted shipping container in the dock area” at Kieran & Imogen Waite’s “very buzzy” operation. Fans feel it’s “perhaps not quite cheap and cheerful, but incredible value, with excellent seafood options”. “The shipping container environment is not a constraint and its first floor location gives good views over harbour” (and is “great outside on a warm day”).

“Everything here is what one would expect of The Ivy”; so say fans of its popular Clifton offshoot. “It plays it posh, in a posh part of town, and attracts a devoted clientele”, with its “lovely interior”. “The menu is standard and uninspiring, but the dishes are tasty: best for breakfast, with a good range of dishes and drinks”.