Review: Osip, Bruton

Bruton is a tiny town on the Somerset-Wiltshire border, with two medieval schools and a rural perfection that hasn’t gone unnoticed by a scattered variety of artists, architects and antiquarians who dot the high street but wouldn’t look out of place in a quiet corner of Fitzrovia. It’s also got a Michelin star in Osip, a “farm to table” restaurant with a 6 or 9 course tasting menu.

Somehow with the farm-to-table moniker I was expecting the kind of rustic setting of Coombeshead Farm, Oxheart or The Smallholding. But Osip is a properly grown-up white tablecloth dining room with the kind of refined cooking and plating to match. Doesn’t mean it isn’t all sourced from local farm, of course, but it wasn’t quite the ambience I’d expected! Nice though.

We start with a good selection of snacks, including a lovely bite of battered Jerusalem artichoke with malt vinegar black garlic mayonnaise. Was as good as it sounds. Then on to some splendid malted sourdough with strongly hay-smoked butter than I loved to bits (and ate too much of). This also came with the absolute star of the evening: a broth of roast root vegetables and lapsang tea with burnt garlic oil on top. Hot, pure, gorgeous umami that was perfect for a wintery evening.

First starter was a neat little salad of leek and ricotta with thinly shaved nashi pear. Following that, celeriac porridge topped with winter truffle and grated egg yolk. Very satisfying texture and flavour from the celeriac, sweet and brassic and silky and creamy. This was followed by a fish course of sea bass, where they’d taken great care in crisping the skin to a perfect crunch without overcooking the white flesh. Nice job. The mixture of pine nut, broccoli puree and pickled kale worked well.

Main course was an excellent venison dish, local fallow deer served as saddle, fillet and belly (our taxi driver pointed out the wood the deer was from as we drove past on the way home). All splendid though the fillet was perhaps the best piece of venison I’ve had in a long while.

Two puddings. The palate cleanser was a spiffy pumpkin sorbet, though the main flavour was orange citrus, with a pool of local apply brandy on top. The main dessert was a chocolate dish, including a rich mousse, a sticky-sweet sourdough ice cream and two crisps, one of them dotted with buckwheat. A fair ending although it didn’t quite knock my socks off. The mini pastel de nata as a petit four was great.

The 9-course menu is £120 before drinks. I’d say that’s probably around the right price for the quality, although maybe more than you’d expect in rural Somerset. There wasn’t enough to ooooh and aaaah about for me to say that I’m dying to return, but there’s some really good cooking going on here.