A new Somerset producer directory, how to eat at Osip with just £75 in your bank account, and a so-far brief but memorable comeback of a top chef
It is a most comprehensive directory, by the way – the likes of which you've never seen before
Here I am again, back in your inbox with your monthly updater on food, farming, and – a theme for this iteration especially – eating out in Somerset. Whether ‘out’ actually means inside (a restaurant), or, more true to the word, outdoors on a farm or at a market.
Sign up for a paid subscription to get all the below, plus access to seasonally-updating guides on where to eat in Somerset.
Let’s get to it, then:
The first edition of a new, continually-updating Somerset producer directory took me the best part of three days to compile. Was it worth it? I dunno. You tell me:
The WFJ's Directory of Somerset Producers
A world-class pork producer? A burgeoning wine scene? An accumulation of small market gardens able and willing to serve their communities hyperfresh chemical-free veg?
This, by the way, isn’t a simple list of food producers in Somerset. It’s a list of (currently 96) producers in Somerset who tend to care more about things like provenance and flavour (i.e. not sanitised by pasteurisation, aseasonal ingredients, or other methods of standardisation) while farming or processing at a scale not overly impinging on nature, but rather – as in many cases – helping regenerate it.
Happily, there were some surprises when putting together this list, such as there being a growing and seemingly healthy number of market gardens servicing their local communities with chemical-free veg, and that, for some reason, the area of North Somerset including the villages of Blagdon and Wrington doesn’t get the credit it should as a fairly major food-producing region.
Anyway! Paid subscribers get access to the whole darned thing, and updates to it every few months. Plus seasonally-updating WFJ guides including Somerset’s best restaurants and Where to eat in Frome – both these, incidentally, I updated in the last few weeks.
And in other news:
Dining at one of Somerset’s best restaurants just got a tad more realistic, as, from this month, Bruton restaurant Osip is bringing in its new Table d’Hôte menu. It’s a three-courser only available in the evenings, but it’s also priced at £75 a head, which is the real news here – those already wanting to visit Osip (especially since it moved to even more salubrious settings down the road) will know that doing so would have previously set one back at least £165.
Below the paywall: A flashy new restaurant in an unexpected part of Somerset; notes on a pop-up headed by one of the South West’s best chefs; good news for those looking to eat out in Castle Cary; and more besides.