Osip, Bruton: restaurant review. “The food is lost-for-words good.”
Uninvited Opinion. Osip steps into its better self with confidence and aplomb going from local produce champion to a world class restaurant in waiting, but one thing holds it back.
Driving through a dark labyrinth of country lanes, a thought went through my mind: “Would anyone find our bodies out here?”
Out in the winter mist, past Bruton’s oceans of cottages and crawl-20-mile-an-hour zones—where Tabitha and Muffin frolic and wild swim—there would be no white tent waiting for me.
Morbid as that may be, I can accept these terms if my last meal is at Osip.
This is Chef Merlin Labron-Johnson's latest incarnation, relocated to a sympathetically restored 16th/17th-century coaching inn-turned-pub reborn as Merlin’s farm-to-table restaurant.
Lived in, English countryside chic was the briefing. An oversized fireplace roars outside the farmhouse as we push through a heavy wooden farm door, revealing a dark, ash theatrical portière and Osip’s understated foyer, staged and softened with earth tones and the warm, slender wooden legs of mid-century-inspired furniture.
There is a short pile of newspapers in a basket; both the logs and decorative pillows are hand-chopped, the latter as if by protocol. It all looks thrown together in that deeply considered, designer way. An indoor fire exudes warmth and a flickering glow that softly whispers, “Stay a while, drink red wine and throw on some thick socks.”
This is as good a time as any to tell you that if the platonic ideal of a plush West Country retreat tingles your senses, Osip also offers four bedrooms — Brue, Avon, Pitt and Somer — directly above the restaurant, completing, in their words, “a holistic destination that celebrates food, drink, art and design”.
There is a practical benefit to overnighting aside from succumbing to Somerset’s splendour: it is considerably easier than getting a taxi from Osip late at night, which we learned the hard way. Our fault. Plan accordingly.
A quick once-over of a concise aperitif menu leads to a dangerously sinkable fig leaf Negroni and a glass of Pelegrim NV, the best English sparkling I’ve enjoyed all year.
Next, the kitchen dispatches a silo of snacks while we stretch out in the lounge, just like FZN or Row. These are the first rounds from one of the two ten-course tasting menus on offer for dinner: the Classics or the Signatures menu. We are Classic people, but we acquiesce to one supplement. More on that later.
Things get going with a mushroom tart layered with hazelnut mushroom puree, beer jelly, and grated macadamia nuts, next to a palate-cleansing sidecar of Granny Smith apple, radish, and cured trout. The We Want Plates crowd will spasm as pseudo-Grecian artefacts and a kintsugi tile candidate enter stage left.
Tasting menus, good ones, often unpack a restaurant’s ethos. Kitchens stretch their wings. Expect storytelling service — sometimes too much storytelling.
Some menus are an industrial complex of mise en place. Others are fiddly, presenting plates more tweezered than an OnlyFans creator’s bikini line.
Through all that meticulous, ruthless rigour, joy — playful, synapse-thumping, heart-plucking joy — often becomes the casualty of perfection.
Trésind Studio conjures millennia of Indian culture, cuisine and evolution with palpable joy. Geranium’s cream, caviar and champagne sophistication ripples with joy.
At Osip, the dishes are intense, studious and bold. Two years ago, the cooking felt displayed and admired, rather than realised. Now, Merlin decants flavour by coaxing what’s delicious from places we know instinctively, then assembles disparate elements as if they were always meant to sit together. The kitchen plumbs depths of flavour and richness with a finesse that feels intuitive and honed.
After the opening mouthfuls of a root-vegetable tea slicked with aromatic burnt garlic oil, a crispy parsnip plank with black-garlic mayo and togarashi, and a fragrant winter citrus salad of pomelo, cedro lemon and bergamot, the menu lifts off.
A slab of grilled maitake, served with a marmalade of ceps and smoked pig’s ear, tucked into a foam of beer and yeast, is both luxurious and resolutely earthy.
Then come Orkney scallops, lacquered in sticky roasted-chicken jus beneath a ten-tog duvet of Jerusalem artichoke purée, topped with crisp tubers and a dusting of cep powder. I licked my teeth in pursuit of the remains. It’s a modern surf-and-turf by which others should be judged.
Order the cheese course supplement instead of the Signature menu. The juxtaposition of sweet, creamy and salt tickled the synapses with its malted fruit loaf, cider brandy, salt and Bath soft cheese. Add a glass of tart Somerset iced cider as a matter of urgency.
The venison heart taco remains from my last visit, followed by blushing, locally-sourced lamb with Chinese broccoli, which, though tasty, felt a little safe — a rare moment of caution on an otherwise assured menu. Dessert, a pumpkin sorbet with Somerset Pomona cream and pumpkin-seed oil, followed by lemon curd with corn-husk ice cream and toasted meringue, evokes snug warmth in bowl form.
I could lose myself in praise, but Osip is not yet its flawless idyll. For all the intelligence and precision coming out of the kitchen, the room still feels underpowered. Service remains formal where it should be warm, recited from flashcards where it should be lived-in. The food invites you to lean in; the hospitality keeps you at arm’s length. I want to laugh; I want to be charmed. These are not fatal flaws; they are stubborn niggles. Osip cooks with conviction and confidence. When it learns to host with the same generosity, it will be blow-the-doors-off extraordinary.
Parsnips, designed to be eaten by hand, leave oily fingertips — a repeat frustration from my last meal. Lastly, must we persist with one-word courses on menus?
Osip, Would I Return?
Verdict: Without question. Osip is already one of the UK’s most serious tasting-menu restaurants, delivering deeply intelligent, flavour-driven modern British cooking. While service still lacks pizzazz, the food alone justifies the journey — and hints at something truly great if hospitality meets the kitchen.
Osip, Who Should Go?
Fine-dining fans, particularly those drawn to modern British cooking and provenance-driven menus.
Review information
Number of visits: 1.
Number of dishes: 13.
Drinks: Wine pairing, £95 per person. Osip is licensed.
Total spend, including taxes and service charge: £622.13
Osip, 25 Kingsettle Hill, Bruton, Somerset, BA10 0LN. For the latest information, visit Osip’s Website and Instagram. +44(0)1749 987277.
Liam is a restaurant critic, food and travel writer based in Dubai. He publishes EatGoSee and contributes to international publications. Find him on Substack, Threads, Instagram, BlueSky or Facebook.
Thank you for the great report, I put it on my list, it sounds really great!
Sounds delightful.