a gloobles guide to Somerset

Mystical ley lines may have long drawn people with their magnetic energy, but the shift in focus now feels keenly future-facing.  When Babington House opened in 1998, it started a slow trickle of intrigue but the pace has quickened. Whether it’s down to a sharper awareness of Somerset’s homegrown talent or an influx of urban escapees, or both, now – alongside the cheese makers and the cider producers – there are creative minds from every field planting roots, setting up ambitious galleries and boundary- pushing restaurants.

Somerset is not the Cotswolds. It is real life, not a film set; muddy, not manicured. It is substance over style. Though often substance as well as style. That’s certainly the case in Bruton. Arriving here for the first time can emit an “Oh?” – a reflexive question mark. Is this slightly grey, single-lane high street the place that everyone has been waxing lyrical about? You need to look closer. On the way in, just beyond the Cabbages and Roses showroom (floral floaty cotton dresses and fabrics), Smouk Interiors (pick up a Moroccan flat-weave kilim) and Rickshaw Chinese Takeaway (excellent noodles), swing by Bo Lee and Workman art gallery, in the town’s former Methodist church, where Jemma Hickman and Alice Workman curate gutsy exhibitions. On up High Street, into ceramicist Colette Woods’ dreamy home studio to pore over her extraordinary stoneware vases and candlesticks, Ape or Eden bookshop (wonderful cards and stationery as well as books) to Commune CC for sustainable, refillable, completely covetable body washes, creams and solid perfumes. A few doors along on the other side is Philo & Philo (from fashion designer Phoebe Philo’s sister and mother) where you can browse the vintage furniture on Fridays and Saturdays only. Antitaupe at number 41 is sometimes open, sometimes not, but always knock on the door if you’re passing to see its Pantone palette of ceramics and homeware. 

At the Chapel may have changed hands but is still going strong, holding court at the top of the hill with its bright rooms, gallery space, hidden terraces and restaurant/bakery/wine shop. And then it’s a tumble down the other side to the two galleries, Make Hauser & Wirth and No 6 Bruton, where local artists are championed. At The Old Pharmacy, the four-course Sunday Sessions are worth driving from London for, as is Briar, where West Country ingredients are whipped into beautiful small plates in the old ironmonger’s shop at Number One Bruton, a hotel hiding even more prettiness behind its yellow door. Up Quaperlake Street a little alleyway leads to a design-led edit of antiques at Bureau Bruton and The Space at Caro, a gorgeous studio for events and exhibitions with an extremely lovely B&B room to bed down in too. Out the other end of the alley, New Romantic delivers more snappily sourced furniture and Wellness Works West majors in British-made spa and beauty products. Only a few minutes down the lane, past the church and the Godminster cheese shop, is the Somerset outpost of global gallerists Hauser & Wirth, its organic farm shop, kooky farmhouse to rent, vibey Roth Bar and delicious Da Costa Italian restaurant. Drive through and you will likely blink and miss it all.

It does not stop here, of course, the creativity and the rolling optimism of new ventures has spread its tentacles far and wide. To The Newt,  the singular Newt, that does nothing unless it can be the very best at it. Its hotel, the buffalo milk gelateria, the cider, the madcap money-is-no-object shenanigans in the estate grounds – a Roman villa, a wyvern’s grotto. It is a show of unbridled ambition but rooted sensibility, with legacy in mind rather than flash-in-the- pan success. And onwards to Castle Cary, where the Newt team has turned a backwater train station into a buzzing community hub with The Creamery. Commuters drop in for pastries to take on the 07:26 to Paddington and, on their way home, scoop up provisions from the farm shop for supper.

All across south Somerset, restaurants with rooms, pubs and supper clubs have created new food-pilgrimage pins in the map. To get right to the nexus, dinner at Horrell and Horrell, in the old cow barn in Jules and Steve Horrell’s Sparkford garden, is as good as it gets, where guests feast on wood-roasted short rib and Basque cheesecake at a communal table of 40 movers and shakers each weekend. In an old bank in South Petherton, 20 minutes further west, Holm’s considered contemporary dishes are consistently glorious – and its private dining room is a brilliant secret to have up your sleeve. Vegetables take centre stage at Root in Wells, steps from the jaw-dropping cathedral, and for the freshest wild garlic orecchiette and other Italian plates, Alfredo’s in Somerton hits the mark.

Right up in the stratosphere though is chef Merlin Labron- Johnson’s stellar Osip, which started life in Bruton (whereBriar now is) and then moved to the nearby village of Hardway. With its phenomenal cooking and almost ascetic interiors, the restaurant has evolved with a Noma-like whisper into the hardest table to book in the county. Hot on its heels is a pub owned by the marvellous Margot Henderson of London’s’s Rochelle Canteen. The Three Horseshoes in Batcombe is a thrilling celebration of the good stuff – proper pies and Scotch eggs and dripping chips. 

Eclectic, hippy Frome also firmly holds its own. Rye Bakery’s sourdough is as popular as the DJ nights in its station-side sibling pizzeria. Thursday happy hour at Little Walcot means £3 Negronis to wash down padrón peppers and Brixham monkfish scampi. And the labneh-tabbouleh- croquettas mezze mash-up at The High Pavement needs serious pre-booking consideration, especially at lunchtime on Saturday when the whole town is thrumming. Hook a trip round the first Sunday of the month (from March to December) to catch The Frome Independent market, a hugely fun riot of stalls on the hilly cobbles, selling everything from handwoven bull-rush baskets and aromatherapy oils to original art and vintage clothes.

And then of course to Bath, which tends to get short shrift in terms of its finger-on-the-pulse- ness. But among that mellow-stone wondrousness, the Sally Lunn buns and spa waters, there are some very interesting people doing very interesting things. Berdoulat, the magical shop from design mavens Patrick and Neri Williams, has everything you didn’t know you needed: Japanese secateurs, wooden egg racks, Greco-Roman plaster relief casts. At magazine emporium Magalleria, owner Daniel McCabe has curated a joyful celebration of all things paper and print, with browsing of the niche titles fully encouraged. Tobias Vernon oversees his gallery/design store 8 Holland Street (which you’ll actually find at 23 Brock Street), bringing in pieces by local makers as well as big international names. The bedrooms in the townhouse above the shop are by far the smartest sleep in the city and a perfect place to crash, happy as a clam, after dinner at Beckford Canteen, Oak or Upstairs at Landrace.

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