London, being a historic seat of high-culture and one of the globe's finest food cities, is swell and all. But escaping the smoke for a slice of sylvan bliss in the countryside has long been the urban dweller’s dream, and a recent wave of big-city chefs have done just that, taking their craft with them and kickstarting a wave of impressive urban-emigré restaurants. From tumbledown inns to high-design dining rooms, the results have been eclectic, with many embracing the sustainable, seasonal, and hyper-local ingredients of their new homes. Below, nine reasons to loosen your waistbands and head to the country.
Osip and The Old Pharmacy
Bruton, Somerset | Merlin Labron-Johnson of Portland and Clipstone
When Merlin Labron-Johnson – previously of Fitzrovia’s Clipstone and Portland – fled the capital for Bruton, few would have guessed the impact his move would have on rural Somerset’s burgeoning food scene. But low and behold, Osip is a marvel: an autumnal bolthole, offering six-course tasting menus of sighing grace, pieced together with super-seasonal local produce, much of which is grown by Labron-Johnson at nearby Dreamers Farm. Dishes change regularly, but expect onion financiers with Westcombe cheddar, say, or beetroot with hay-smoked trout and kefir cream. On top of all that, Labron-Johnson also runs The Old Pharmacy, a wine shop and grocery store a few doors down, with a stripped-back board of southern French-northern Italian small plates, and a guest chef series that has seen impresarios like Brawn’s Ed Wilson and the folks from Barcelona’s Bar Brutal dragged, willingly, to the sticks.
1 High Street, Bruton, Somerset, BA10 0AB
3 High Street, Bruton, Somerset, BA10 0AB
Coombeshead Farm
Launceston, Cornwall | Tom Adams, of Pitt Cue
A visit to east Cornwall’s Coombeshead Farm (opened in 2016 by Tom Adams of BBQ pioneers Pitt Cue, and NYC expat April Bloomfield) has become a kind of edible pilgrimage for those trying to recreate the Good Life fantasy. Ambling the property’s sprawling 66-acres of meadows, woodland, and working estate – eyeballing the furry Mangalitsa pigs, traipsing the copse, popping a head into the greenhouses and then retiring to the farmhouse for aperitifs – is as close to gastro Arcadia as the UK gets. It’s all funneled into the restaurant itself, which serves meticulous dishes of sustainable, seasonal fare grown and reared around the farm (as well the house sourdough, the best in the country).
Lewannick, Launceston, Cornwall, PL15 7QQ
