🇬🇧 Osip, Bruton, Somerset : There’s something special happening in the British countryside. The food I had there was not only delicious, I wish I was living nearby (like my lucky friend Rémi who started @commune.cc ). The Chef Merlin Labron-Johnson created this restaurant-guesthouse that has a few rooms upstairs since last year.

He mastered his craft in Belgium at In De Wulf. Opened a first version of Osip in Bruton in 2019 and relocated in its current form in August 2024 in this 300 years old former coaching inn. He started growing vegetables that became so bountiful that it outgrew the little kitchen of the first Osip. Merlin’s ambition and care are now exquisitely served in this new spot. His sensitivity, talent will be something I’ll passionately follow for the years to come.

Was that the perfect little fireplace at the entrance? The local Bath cheese melting offfffff its cider brandy sticky toasted bread? The delicate silverware and ceramics? The kind service? That quail and venison pithiviers making you forget winter? The blackberry, sea buckthorn and meadowsweet pate de fruits? The way mushrooms, celeriac and pumpkin had never felt so elegantly alive? All of this. Thank you @merlin_johnson @osiprestaurant Less