The WFJ's guide to the best food experiences in Somerset this spring/summer
18 local festivals, feasts, open days, and cooking workshops to sink your teeth into
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With Somerset on the cusp of food festival season, the time has come for The Wallfish Journal to provide a digest of the best local food and drink-related things to see, do, and tuck into this spring and summer.
You’ll note the regular runners – such as The Frome Independent, Horrell & Horrell’s dinners, and Charles Dowding’s no-dig courses – aren’t present on this list, as excellent as they are. Rather, we’re here to cover those that grace the calendar only once a year, or once in a while.
Need it be said, Somerset’s a big county – some events might be a short walk down the road from you. Others could require a two hour drive. All, however, should be worth the trip.
Eat Your Weeds (for lunch)
25th May | Vallis Farm, BA11 3JQ | £40
‘A weed is merely a plant in the wrong place’, as they say. What they failed to mention though is that the right place may well be on the plate in front of you. Join Vallis Farm on a guided forage of your lunch, learning why smaller, nature-friendly operations choose to embrace weeds rather than – as most farms tend to do – drown them under a heavy dose of glyphosate.
Rosé & Feasting Evening with Yapp Wines
31st May | Wraxall Vineyard, Shepton Mallet BA4 6RQ | £65
Wraxall Vineyard’s new-ish terrace and event space boasts arguably one of the best panoramas in Somerset. With this (aptly named The View) as the backdrop, tuck in to five courses – including rosé-cured monkfish, and brown sugar meringue with Cheddar Valley strawberries – each paired with a rosé from award-winning wine merchant Yapp.
Garden Lates at The Newt
Various dates in June & July | The Newt, Castle Cary BA7 7NG | £70
To make the most of the longer summer evenings, The Newt hosts a series of (weather-dependent) picnics in its objectively beautiful grounds, mercifully accessible whether you own a Newt membership or not. Dishes proffered include barbequed lamb leg with spiced aubergine and seed head dukka, or pork chop with cabbage and apple kraut, alongside sides such as dressed summer beans, crushed potatoes, and tomatoes from the glasshouse.
Open Farm Day
9th June | Various locations | Free
Without trying too hard, the average working farm is automatically conducive to a good family day out. After all, nary a child exists who isn’t enamoured with the sheer sight of a tractor, a combine, or a cow. LEAF’s (Linking Environment and Farming) annual Open Farm Sunday leans into this, with farms around the country opening their gates to the general public, putting on tractor rides, farm walks, bug hunts, and so on. Participating farms in Somerset include Durslade Farm in Bruton, Mundrils Farm near Burnham, and Broadmead Farm outside Yeovil.
DIY Fermented Hot Sauce Workshop
13th June | Get Pickled HQ, Frome BA11 5LP | £50
Tickets via Eventbrite
A crash course in how to get the best balance of flavour, heat, spice, and lacto-fermentation funkiness into the same bottle. Led by Get Pickled founder Paula, this workshop includes hot sauce to make and take home, and generous tasters from her home kitchen.
Castle Farm’s Midsummer Supper Club
22nd June | Midford, BA2 7PU | £58
The traditional Scandinavian take on summer solstice celebrations comes to Somerset. And on behalf of Castle Farm's co-manager and part-Swede Pravin Nayar, no less. There’ll be meatballs (and vegetarian alternatives), there’ll be homemade schnapps, and there’ll be Cloudberry martinis.
Empanada Workshop with Anna Ortiz
24th June | Westcombe, Evercreech BA4 6ER | £80
From her new Somerset kitchen neighbouring Westcombe Dairy, Ecuadorian chef Anna Ortiz imparts the ins and outs of her native staple the empanada. Or, in this case, empanadas al horno (beef and olive filling in a masa flour parcel). Lunch with wine included.
‘All Farm Burger’ BBQ
13th July | Gothelney Farm, TA5 2PQ | Tickets TBD
What could a burger taste like if its every component was made, from scratch, in the same place? Well, here’s your chance to find out – Gothelney’s burgers will include beef patties from the Red Larder cows that graze the farm, bacon from Gothelney’s native-cross pigs, and buns from the onsite Field Bakery which mills its flour from the farm’s population grain. That’s the gist of it, at least – more details TBC.
Garden Grazing at 42 Acres
18th July | Witham Friary, BA11 5HL | £42
Tickets via Eventbrite
Somerset’s favourite regenerative retreat exhibits its philosophy of ‘edible ornamentals’, or ‘edimentals’. That is to say, certain plants that commonly have a place in your garden and can be incorporated into teas, salads, or medicine. Among other things, this involves a tour of 42’s walled garden with advice on what to eat and what not. All rounded off with tea and cake.
Valley Fest
1st - 4th August | Chew Valley Lake, BS40 8SZ | From £70
Food and music festival Valley Fest takes place more or less on the same site as The Community Farm, a community-supported agriculture project with a deep grounding in regenerative farming. Similar kinds of narratives underlie the festival, made apparent for example in the ‘regenerative’ roast lunch served on the Sunday. Other food bits include a feast put on by Wahaca founder Thomasina Meirs, a chilli-eating competition, and a ‘kitchen disco’ featuring chefs from Bristol and beyond.
Tuckers Cider Festival
23rd - 24th August | Radstock, BA3 5XF
Cider festivals always seem like a good idea. Until you have to drive to them. Fortunately Tuckers Grave – a legendary venue in itself featuring a 200-year-old cider house – has a campsite too. Expect five music acts, plenty of food, and of course some of Somerset’s best cider.
Frome Agricultural & Cheese Show
14th September | West Woodlands Showground, BA11 5ES | Entry from £20 (£14 early bird)
Somerset’s (if not the wider South West’s) best-known agricultural show returns, and not only for the occasion of the Global Cheese Awards – other food-based attractions include scores of food stalls representing local producers, enormous prize-winning leeks (among other lengthy and/or voluptuous vegetables), and a ‘cookery theatre’. There’s also plenty in the way of falconry demos and tractor cavalcades to enthuse kids and adults of a similar disposition.
(Those more interested in the cheese however might be more smitten by Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival over the border in Dorset, which so happens to take place on the same weekend).
Also worth a mention:
Elderflower Foraging with HOLM chef-director Nicolas Balfe (21st May, South Petherton), Somer Valley’s Pub on the Farm (24th May, Peasedown BA2 8PL), Community Market Garden and Off-Grid Water Systems Tour (9th June, Frome Field 2 Fork BA11 4EU), English Wine Week Tasting (20th June, The Stores in Frome BA11 1BU), ‘Seasons’ At Redwoods Farm (6th July, EX16 7PD), Outcider Festival (1st - 4th August, Fernhill Farm BS40 6LD)
