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Osip, Bruton: Courgettes Should Not Taste This Good
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Osip, Bruton: Courgettes Should Not Taste This Good
Osip Restaurant, 1 High Street, Bruton, Somerset, BA10 0AB, United Kingdom. Osip Restaurant offers both a full Osip tasting menu, £120 (lunch and dinner) and a shortened Osip tasting menu, £69 (lunch only). Aperitifs and cocktails from £6. Wine by the glass from £7. All information is correct at the time of publication. Check out Osip Restaurant’s Website or call +44 1749 813322 for the latest information.
Osip Restaurant in Bruton bounces between simple and simply divine as chef Labron-Johnson serves on locally-sourced ingredients and eclectic British style.
Written by Liam Collens // Find more reviews here.
The Highs
The Lows
The Highs
The Lows
Osip, Bruton: Courgettes Should Not Taste This Good
Bruton is your quintessential English market town sprinkled with museums and independent shops of discerning, good taste. A countryside nook with a strong sense of self-importance. Bruton’s charms take root and, after a few pints of Lilley’s Cider, you would be forgiven for strolling towards an impeccable estate agent window. Is this pristine slice of British splendour within reach? Absolutely not. Bruton remains the stuff of wildest dreams.
Amidst all this tweed and thick layers of matte Farrow & Ball lies the stone facade of chef Merlin Labron-Johnson’s Osip Restaurant. Osip is more interesting than just its Michelin Star, Green Star or even Merlin’s credentials, but one cannot blithely overlook them. Merlin was Britain’s youngest chef to lead a Michelin-starred restaurant. Not Osip, but Portland, when he was merely twenty-four years old.
Bruton’s eclecticism finds a home in Osip; from its decidedly British interior – a ruddy, raspberry living room punctuated with period furniture and monochrome, fashion portraits – to Osip’s farm-to-table tasting menu imprinted with influence from outside Bruton’s fringe, like the beetroot taco snack – claret red – lined with a beetroot mole, smoked creme fraiche and a dusting of venison heart. You’ll want seconds.

Osip Restaurant in Bruton, Somerset. A Michelin Starred restaurant with a Green Michelin Star and featured on the 50 Discovery List.
Amidst all this tweed and thick layers of matte Farrow & Ball lies the stone facade of chef Merlin Labron-Johnson’s Osip Restaurant. Osip is more interesting than just its Michelin Star, Green Star or even Merlin’s credentials, but one cannot blithely overlook them. Merlin was Britain’s youngest chef to lead a Michelin-starred restaurant. Not Osip, but Portland, when he was merely twenty-four years old.
Bruton’s eclecticism finds a home in Osip; from its decidedly British interior – a ruddy, raspberry living room punctuated with period furniture and monochrome, fashion portraits – to Osip’s farm-to-table tasting menu imprinted with influence from outside Bruton’s fringe, like the beetroot taco snack – claret red – lined with a beetroot mole, smoked creme fraiche and a dusting of venison heart. You’ll want seconds.
Osip Restaurant in Bruton, Somerset. A Michelin Starred restaurant with a Green Michelin Star and featured on the 50 Discovery List.
Osip’s menu restores my fading faith in One Michelin Star dining
Osip’s menu is disloyal to any one cuisine. The menu strides across continents to coax the best from local, seasonal produce without feeling contrived or gimmicky. A crudite plate arrives with a pale, rich divot of earthy, whipped sesame that pools a verdant, grassy parsley oil in which to drag baby carrot and radishes, the latter both sweet and peppery. Merlin’s greatest trick is, at times, to lure you into a sense that he’s barely cooking at all. We eat what is delicious, and the kitchen succumbs to nature’s will. Then, a light courgette espuma spooned over sweet Cornish lobster and gooseberry jam quietly whispers to you of the kitchen’s matchmaking prowess. It’s ability to assemble disparate flavours as if they were always meant to be together. Courgettes should not taste this good.
Osip’s 11-course tasting menu starts with snack bites, progressing towards more substantial courses like funky, fermented potato bread dipped in kefir cream spiked with tomato dashi and trout roe. A small earthen cup of chilled tomato tea with fig leaf oil refreshes. Osip’s pleasant, young service team bring dishes with smiles and explain bottles from a wine pairing that dabbles with seldom-seen pours like the refreshing Lanzarote Palomino and Sicilian natural Grillo.


Farm vegetables, whipped sesame, parsley oil; chilled courgette soup, lobster and gooseberry jam; fermented potato bread; chilled tomato tea and fig leaf oil.
Osip’s 11-course tasting menu starts with snack bites, progressing towards more substantial courses like funky, fermented potato bread dipped in kefir cream spiked with tomato dashi and trout roe. A small earthen cup of chilled tomato tea with fig leaf oil refreshes. Osip’s pleasant, young service team bring dishes with smiles and explain bottles from a wine pairing that dabbles with seldom-seen pours like the refreshing Lanzarote Palomino and Sicilian natural Grillo.
Farm vegetables, whipped sesame, parsley oil; chilled courgette soup, lobster and gooseberry jam; fermented potato bread; chilled tomato tea and fig leaf oil.
Osip is the most accomplished of the four Green Michelin Star restaurants visited over a fortnight in Britain
Osip’s decor and extended tasting menu
Osip’s dining room is equally rejuvenating: bench seating cushioned with strips of pale sage with modern British flair. Large windows draw in natural light — all the better to admire the compassionately-restored period features in this former ironmonger’s store, with its strong beams, old ceiling hooks and warming, solid wooden floor. The two-seater, window-side tables afford the best people-watching, undisturbed by the roar of Chelsea tractors.
The team delivers a warming bowl of pudgy gnudi stuffed with Westcombe ricotta over a rubble of broad beans blanketed under a smoked whey foam and what may have been crispy shiso leaves. Our table hums with appreciation. A standout Orkney scallop steep in an ochre peanut satay, bolstered by the scallop’s roe, and a Thai basil mole, as green as Bruton’s countryside. It’s a bolshy plate, arguably the best of the night, but for a trio of desserts that follow an equally moorish layered farm salad seasoned with bagna cauda and creamy soft curls of Westcombe Caerphilly cheese.
Regular readers will know restaurants often disappoint me with overly-engineered, incongruent sweets. Desserts that are constructed by chefs who do not know that dessert is the last act of kindness a kitchen sends to its diners. Osip understands the brief. A rich bittersweet chocolate sorbet sits beside tart labneh and fruity, sweet cherries. A stacked pistachio Paris-Brest with candied pistachios and an eye-widening rocket ice cream. That’s right, rocket ice cream. We finish with a palate-cleansing lemon sea buckthorn tart, oozing with sharp luxurious curd and a creme brulee-like crisp top – curated by someone with food as a love language.


Osip’s interiors compassionately renovate a former ironmongers; Westcombe ricotta gnudi, broad beans and smoked whey; Farm salad, bagna cauda and westcombe caerphilly.
Osip is the most accomplished of the four Green Michelin Star restaurants visited over a fortnight in Britain. Merlin’s deft touch is palpable from start to finish. Spiritually, OAK Restaurant in Bath was the closest. Osip is far more consistent and polished than Land Restaurant in Birmingham in almost every way. It feels more special than the much-lauded Apricity, whose tasting menu is at times a random collection of the chef’s ambitions with real highs and lows.
Osip will be fondly remembered as one of the dining highlights of the year but it is not flawless and, at £120 a head plus £75 for the wine pairing, I have notes. I can’t overlook greasy fingerprints after (a delicious) courgette flower, after the fried purple potato snack and – again – after handling that funky potato bread. (Osip, give us wet, fragrant towels after such dishes. Tresind Studio does it.) I did not mention a pleasant but underwhelming chicken main course oddly paired with that farm salad in bagna cauda. A great salad that sits better alone and further up the menu. There are times when dinner drags and I watch the clock a little. This pedantry will not bother most, and it hardly bothers me, as I sit comfortably with extended family kind enough to host us for a week looking around at other people enjoying the moment.


72% pump street chocolate sorbet, labneh and cherries; Pistachio Paris-Brest, verjus and rocket; Sea buckthorn tart.
Those looking for accomplished, informal fine dining with a Green Michelin Star. Special occasions. Light dining. Visitors and residents to Bruton, Babington House or nearby Frome.


Farm vegetables, whipped sesame, parsley oil; the waiting room with large fashion portraits and period furniture.
Alessandro Viola, Note di Grillo 2021: A juicy Grillo white wine with a nose of fresh red apple fruit, ripe pear, slightly floral with a cloudy apple juice appearance. It’s dry, high acid, med alc, med body and grippy tannin. The Fruit intensity is medium, pear forward again with cloudy apple juice. Slight saline quality to it too. The finish is long finish. It’s a very good wine. Worked well with this pairing with courgette but could easily be drunk on its own.
Puro Rofe, Testeyna 2021: A medium lemony colour with a nose of struck match stick phosphate smell. It’s dry but more rounded on the palate due to lees work. It’s warmer, more buttery and oily. Fruit wise, the wine tastes of green apple and a saline quality. The finish is long. I’m not a fan of lees work on white wine but this one works. I would drink another glass but not a whole bottles. Drunk as part of a wine pairing with gnudi.

Alessandro Viola, Note di Grillo 2021; Puro Rofe, Testeyna 2021.
Sybille Kuntz, Riesling Spätlese Trocken 2015: A delicious late harvest biodynamic Riesling. It’s a light lemony yellow with a medium nose of pear, stone and unripe pineapple or lime. It’s dry, high acid, med alc, fruit is medium with pear and apple notes with a little flint and petroleum after taste (but not much). Long finish. It’s a very good wine and would drink this again.
Curtet, Pinot Noir 2017: It’s a medium ruby with cherry, strawberry jam, anise and red currant nose. It’s dry, high acid, med alc (but felt higher at times). Light but grippy tannin, med body, fruit is unclear broadly red fruit and cherry forward but not so obvious. The dried leaves notes comes through with a leather earthy finish. The finish is medium. It’s a good to very good wine. Drunk at a pairing in Osip with a charred chicken course, which worked.
Domaine de Souch, Cuvée de Marie-Kattalin Jurançon 2018: A pale lemony yellow dessert wine with a light nose of unripe stone fruit, pineapple and raw mango. It’s sweet without being syrupy, high alc, medium body where fruit matches nose with candied pineapple and dried pineapple, peaches and mango. It’s lighter on its feet than a Sauternes. Surprisingly short finish. I would drink this again.


Sybille Kuntz, Riesling Spätlese Trocken 2015; Curtet, Pinot Noir 2017; Domaine de Souch, Cuvée de Marie-Kattalin Jurançon 2018; Osip’s wine menu by the glass.
The team delivers a warming bowl of pudgy gnudi stuffed with Westcombe ricotta over a rubble of broad beans blanketed under a smoked whey foam and what may have been crispy shiso leaves. Our table hums with appreciation. A standout Orkney scallop steep in an ochre peanut satay, bolstered by the scallop’s roe, and a Thai basil mole, as green as Bruton’s countryside. It’s a bolshy plate, arguably the best of the night, but for a trio of desserts that follow an equally moorish layered farm salad seasoned with bagna cauda and creamy soft curls of Westcombe Caerphilly cheese.
Regular readers will know restaurants often disappoint me with overly-engineered, incongruent sweets. Desserts that are constructed by chefs who do not know that dessert is the last act of kindness a kitchen sends to its diners. Osip understands the brief. A rich bittersweet chocolate sorbet sits beside tart labneh and fruity, sweet cherries. A stacked pistachio Paris-Brest with candied pistachios and an eye-widening rocket ice cream. That’s right, rocket ice cream. We finish with a palate-cleansing lemon sea buckthorn tart, oozing with sharp luxurious curd and a creme brulee-like crisp top – curated by someone with food as a love language.
Osip’s interiors compassionately renovate a former ironmongers; Westcombe ricotta gnudi, broad beans and smoked whey; Farm salad, bagna cauda and westcombe caerphilly.
Osip Restaurant, Would I Return?
Osip is the most accomplished of the four Green Michelin Star restaurants visited over a fortnight in Britain. Merlin’s deft touch is palpable from start to finish. Spiritually, OAK Restaurant in Bath was the closest. Osip is far more consistent and polished than Land Restaurant in Birmingham in almost every way. It feels more special than the much-lauded Apricity, whose tasting menu is at times a random collection of the chef’s ambitions with real highs and lows.
Osip will be fondly remembered as one of the dining highlights of the year but it is not flawless and, at £120 a head plus £75 for the wine pairing, I have notes. I can’t overlook greasy fingerprints after (a delicious) courgette flower, after the fried purple potato snack and – again – after handling that funky potato bread. (Osip, give us wet, fragrant towels after such dishes. Tresind Studio does it.) I did not mention a pleasant but underwhelming chicken main course oddly paired with that farm salad in bagna cauda. A great salad that sits better alone and further up the menu. There are times when dinner drags and I watch the clock a little. This pedantry will not bother most, and it hardly bothers me, as I sit comfortably with extended family kind enough to host us for a week looking around at other people enjoying the moment.
72% pump street chocolate sorbet, labneh and cherries; Pistachio Paris-Brest, verjus and rocket; Sea buckthorn tart.
Osip Restaurant, Who Should Come?
Those looking for accomplished, informal fine dining with a Green Michelin Star. Special occasions. Light dining. Visitors and residents to Bruton, Babington House or nearby Frome.
Farm vegetables, whipped sesame, parsley oil; the waiting room with large fashion portraits and period furniture.
Osip Wine Pairing and Notes
Alessandro Viola, Note di Grillo 2021: A juicy Grillo white wine with a nose of fresh red apple fruit, ripe pear, slightly floral with a cloudy apple juice appearance. It’s dry, high acid, med alc, med body and grippy tannin. The Fruit intensity is medium, pear forward again with cloudy apple juice. Slight saline quality to it too. The finish is long finish. It’s a very good wine. Worked well with this pairing with courgette but could easily be drunk on its own.
Puro Rofe, Testeyna 2021: A medium lemony colour with a nose of struck match stick phosphate smell. It’s dry but more rounded on the palate due to lees work. It’s warmer, more buttery and oily. Fruit wise, the wine tastes of green apple and a saline quality. The finish is long. I’m not a fan of lees work on white wine but this one works. I would drink another glass but not a whole bottles. Drunk as part of a wine pairing with gnudi.
Alessandro Viola, Note di Grillo 2021; Puro Rofe, Testeyna 2021.
Sybille Kuntz, Riesling Spätlese Trocken 2015: A delicious late harvest biodynamic Riesling. It’s a light lemony yellow with a medium nose of pear, stone and unripe pineapple or lime. It’s dry, high acid, med alc, fruit is medium with pear and apple notes with a little flint and petroleum after taste (but not much). Long finish. It’s a very good wine and would drink this again.
Curtet, Pinot Noir 2017: It’s a medium ruby with cherry, strawberry jam, anise and red currant nose. It’s dry, high acid, med alc (but felt higher at times). Light but grippy tannin, med body, fruit is unclear broadly red fruit and cherry forward but not so obvious. The dried leaves notes comes through with a leather earthy finish. The finish is medium. It’s a good to very good wine. Drunk at a pairing in Osip with a charred chicken course, which worked.
Domaine de Souch, Cuvée de Marie-Kattalin Jurançon 2018: A pale lemony yellow dessert wine with a light nose of unripe stone fruit, pineapple and raw mango. It’s sweet without being syrupy, high alc, medium body where fruit matches nose with candied pineapple and dried pineapple, peaches and mango. It’s lighter on its feet than a Sauternes. Surprisingly short finish. I would drink this again.
Sybille Kuntz, Riesling Spätlese Trocken 2015; Curtet, Pinot Noir 2017; Domaine de Souch, Cuvée de Marie-Kattalin Jurançon 2018; Osip’s wine menu by the glass.
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