Osip
1 High St, Bruton, Somerset
Last week I bumped into an old friend at Bruton station. I had just spent the day at the excellent Roth Bar and Grill, and was awaiting the train back to London. Don McCullin, one of the world’s greatest photographers, has lived in a nearby village for 35 years. I was banging on about how this small Somerset town not only has an incredible art gallery in Hauser & Wirth but a fistful of really decent restaurants too. He smiled. ‘When I first arrived, all those years back, a cat crossing the road at night was as exciting as things got.’
Osip in Somerset. The room is artily discreet, with elegant teal walls, butcher’s tiles, old beams and bare patches where the original stone has been left alone
And as we rattled our way through the misty gloaming, up towards London, he told me tales of his wartime stints in Vietnam, Lebanon, El Salvador, Cambodia and the rest. Dear God, what a sheltered, soft-handed, lily-livered life I lead. All I could offer him in return was my thoughts on Osip, a new restaurant in Bruton, recently opened by Merlin Labron-Johnson. I know who got the bum end of the exchange. Still, Labron-Johnson is one hell of a chef. I loved his cooking at Clipstone in London. And raced down pretty much the moment its doors opened.
Now I try not to review restaurants in their first month or two. They need time to settle in, get things right, slip into a comfortable rhythm. But Osip has hit the ground running. The paint might still be wet on the front door. That kitchen, though, is roaring. The room is artily discreet, with elegant teal walls, butcher’s tiles, old beams and bare patches where the original stone has been left alone.
The kitchen is open, waiters wear white linen collarless jackets and Labron-Johnson brings many of the dishes to the table himself. On one wall, three rough wooden shelves where home-made pickles, vinegars and ferments fizz away. All very on trend, sure, but subtly so. No farm to fork shoved down one’s throat, or pious lectures on saving the Earth. Just lovely service, and food that truly thrills.
An intense duck broth comes in a pretty ceramic cup, with a smoky Lapsang Souchong grunt. Duck tea, if you will. Leek oil adds verdant allium allure. We eat exceptional Mimosa eggs, with just the right amount of devil. Beautifully baked financiers are stained orange with pumpkin, with a cakey, sweet savoury appeal. A cured yolk adds more richness. While cheddar gougères, light as sighs, with a depth that reminds me of damp Somerset caves, revel in the brilliance of local Westcombe cheddar. Thin slices of alabaster lardo, home-cured, are scattered with cara-melised walnuts. Sweet, salt, soft, crunch. Labron-Johnson knows the power of texture, and uses those contrasts again and again.
Crouton crumbs add bite to the leek vinaigrette, the alliums wobbling on that line between firm and soft. Topped with grated duck egg, and a great tangle of chervil and tarragon, it’s a discreet, lovely, quietly modern version of a classic French dish.
More textural titillation with Jerusalem artichoke velouté, where soft, sticky, slow-cooked chunks of the vegetable lurk alongside crisp, deep-fried slivers and soft dice of spanking-fresh raw scallop. At the bottom, a pool of intense chicken jus. It’s both delicate and robust, refined and hearty. One hell of a dish, full stop.
Seasonable and sustainable it may be, but smug it ain’t. Somerset has a brand new star
Then a Tourte de Gibier, a just-pink mallard breast, wrapped in cabbage, good porky sausage meat and joyously burnished puff pastry. Ye gods, it’s a masterpiece, highly technical, classically French yet, somehow, completely Labron-Johnson. A small pile of sharp pickled cabbage and a blob of quince paste stop things getting too heady. Like all his food, it’s reassuringly old-school, and slyly modern too.
Pudding is a perfectly wobbling crème caramel topped with fat raisins soaked in local Temperley cider brandy. By the time we totter out, the place is jam-packed. And booked solid for the next few weeks. That Bruton lot know a good thing when they taste it. Seasonable and sustainable it may be, but smug it ain’t. Somerset has a brand new star.
About £45 per head