Somerset's top 26 restaurants, IMO
Otherwise known as the WFJ’s very biased, and probably eternally provisional, 'power rankings'
Updated February 2026
It’s been a hot minute since we checked in on what I call the WFJ’s Provisional Power Ranking of Somerset Restaurants. So here we are, with another update.
For those that need a reminder (myself included), this is an ongoing attempt to rate Somerset’s independent restaurants comparative to one another. It is based on the American sports’ system of comparing teams in the same league with as little fuss or confusion as possible, giving a general overview of how good a particular team is beyond simply their success rate in fixtures.
The jury’s still out as to whether this way of doing it is actually useful or not when applied to restaurants in Somerset – I’d be happy to know whether you think either way in the comments or subscriber chat. If anything, it’s certainly a good way to lose friends in hospitality.
For more disclaimers, head to the original post from June 2024. But just in case it wasn’t clear already, these rankings are based on my perception of them – Osip, for example, is constantly rated as the best restaurant in the UK (see The Good Food Guide’s recent assessment, for instance), yet for me there’s something about Pennard Hill’s more accessible and immediate farm-to-table-ness (e.g. what’s come courtesy of their mangalitsa pigs, or what game bird Tom the co-host and chef has shot locally) that’s what keeps it at number one.
Who’s up, who’s down?
Compared with the last update in April 2025, Higher Farm has now been crossed off as it lost its restaurant to rennovation works. At the time of writing, it has announced a street food offering for summer 2026, while its brilliant head chef George Barson has moved on to cook Mexican-adjacent food at The Prickly Pear in Bruton. Tondo and Inoshishi are others to have succumbed in the past six months.
Some eating places — like Oak, ¡A Huevo!, and Coop— have slunk down the rankings not necessarily because their quality has declined, but because a newer restaurant just about pips them in most categories.