Productivity, initially at least, boomed during lockdown. Work aside, we learnt languages, acquired baking skills and took online courses. (Rather, some did; I mostly consumed an unsound diet and invested in larger jeans.) Seemingly no one, however, was more productive over that period — and in recent years — than chef Merlin Labron-Johnson.
With the temporary lockdown shuttering of Osip — Labron-Johnson’s critically acclaimed restaurant in Bruton, in Somerset, and his first solo venture following successes launching London’s Portland and Clipstone restaurants — he learnt how to grow fruit and vegetables by watching YouTube. He opened The Old Pharmacy, a grocery shop in a former dispensary on Bruton High Street, which is now a bistro and wine bar. He took over a farm — and another one — which today supply the majority of produce used in his two venues. Osip earned a Michelin star in 2021 and, two years later, a Green star, the award for sustainability. Epicures and the otherwise curious from around the world flock to the West Country to see what he can do.
Labron-Johnson’s celebrated cookery moved to a new, larger home in August — a 17th-century coaching inn with land, unofficially titled Osip 2.0, in a village just outside Bruton — with the goal of eventually creating an all-encompassing dining destination at which guests can stay the night. This month marks the realisation of that vision with the opening of four idyllic rooms above the restaurant, which offer views of the neighbouring pine forest and verdant rural landscape. Each space combines stylish minimalism with locally handcrafted decor, sensitively melded with the building’s historic features and offering a peaceful retreat after a symphony of gustatory delights.
“This year has been about bringing the other pieces together,” Labron-Johnson says. “I wanted to create something that was more than the restaurant, where people could come and enjoy the house, the gardens, the art.”
We are visiting at the tail-end of May, as some of the first guests (and the first press) to experience Osip overnight. So far only friends, family and investors have stayed, aside from the chef-patron himself. “I’ve been sleeping in the different rooms to see what they need,” he says with a smile.
Beyond bookings in the restaurant, guests in the rooms are granted other benefits too, including breakfast and car transfers to and from local train stations (a straightforward 1h35 journey from London Paddington) and the opportunity to visit the farms, which we are certainly keen to do. We first meet the easy-going and friendly Labron-Johnson in Bruton, the market town that has become a magnet for the moneyed and appears to be on a charm offensive, with the river Brue glistening past picturesque cobbled walkways and pretty ivy-clad homes.
We follow the chef in convoy to the newer of the two farms, Coombe, just a skip away from town, where we meet head grower Jed Gordon-Moran. The farm is owned by Sir Christopher Le Brun, the celebrated artist and former president of the Royal Academy, whose work hangs on Osip’s walls, and his wife, Charlotte Verity. When the couple took over the property in recent years, they offered the plots to Labron-Johnson to use. “We didn’t know what to expect with this soil,” Gordon-Moran says. “We try to be as no-dig and no-till as much as possible, so I had to hold my nerve.” So far, so good. He offers us a taste of the sugar snap peas, which are just coming into season, as a flock of sheep lounge lazily under a nearby tree, seemingly untempted by patches of broccoli, potatoes, cauliflower, cabbage, beetroot and chard. The highest point of the farm, with a vista of the undulating countryside, is home to seven beehives, the residents noisily at work. They are, after all, responsible for tonight’s dessert.
Closer to Osip is Dreamers Farm, a 60-acre former dairy that was taken over by Labron-Johnson thanks to another arrangement with the landowners, who receive fresh produce from its yield. “Bartering — it’s quite old-fashioned but it’s fun. There’s a lot of that around here,” Labron-Johnson says, as we pad by a prismatic array of onions, carrots, kohlrabi, fennel, radishes, brassicas, beetroot and mustard salads. He points to metre-high broad-bean plants on the verge of entering the seasonal spotlight, as rocket and spinach poke from the earth, awaiting their turn.
Labron-Johnson first experimented with growing food in lockdown, learning from the videos of Charles Dowding, Somerset’s no-dig pioneer, before eventually setting up Dreamers. “I made a lot of mistakes,” he says with a laugh. “It’s like cooking . . . that’s how you learn, and it’s very rewarding when you get it right,” he says, proudly pulling a turnip from the soil. The restaurants are now around 70-90 per cent self-sufficient, depending on the time of year. “I’m not involved in the day-to-day operations any more, but I am the link between the kitchens and Jed, making sure that everything is being used, as well as the creative side of it,” he says.
En route to Osip, snaking through country roads with sky-high hedgerows, we catch a glimpse of some envy-inducing properties — evidence, perhaps, of Bruton’s steadily increasing measure of celebrity-per-capita over the past decade: Stella McCartney, Benedict Cumberbatch and Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson are just a few who have scooped up homes here. The influx of affluence can partly be credited to the arrival of Hauser & Wirth Somerset and its wealthy founders, Iwan Wirth and Manuela Hauser, and The Newt, the luxury country-house hotel owned by the South African billionaire Koos Bekker and his wife, Karen Roos.
Labron-Johnson’s landing was more of a happy coincidence — a good site became available at the right time. “I’d heard a little bit about Bruton, but had never been,” he says. “I was just desperate to get going and start cooking in the countryside.” Thus Osip was born, though the bigger, broader 2.0 “was always part of the plan”, he says.
Before we check in to our room for the evening, he offers us a tour of the lot, so we follow the chef up an external staircase to the first floor, where we encounter a calming palette of white walls and oak flooring, and a pale-coloured abstract artwork by English artist Grace Watts.
Designed by Johnny Smith, creative director of the Smith & Willis hospitality group, the rooms are each named after rivers that run through Somerset: Somer, Pitt, Brue and Avon. Each is generously sized and well-appointed, with en-suite bathrooms and super-king beds, while the latter two are particularly striking: duplex, loft-style rooms with freestanding baths. (Pitt, one of the smaller rooms, is Labron-Johnson’s favourite.)
All feature the exposed beams of the historic inn, while new materials, furnishings and artworks have been sourced from local artisans, including impressive, live-edge English oak headboards and bedside tables created from trees felled nearby. “I wanted to strip it back and start with something quite clean and simple — the existing beams, a muted palette — then acquire pieces over time, like a beautiful chair at a market, things like that,” Labron-Johnson says.
In Avon, we scrub up for dinner with the pleasing toiletries, made in collaboration with Harvest Skincare using seasonal British botanicals, while attempting and failing to avoid the freshly baked canelés that are provided in-room, before heading downstairs to taste the veg in its finery.
Earlier dinner guests are gathered for cocktails around the wood burner in a cosy lounge; we are keen to catch the last of the evening sun and opt for martinis and crudités in the garden, which looks back to the grand, whitewashed building and the modern glass-box extension at its rear — the award-winning kitchen. The chefs are dicing and slicing with metronomic precision, as the tall grass and wildflowers gently drift in the spring breeze.
The view is similarly reflected once inside: tables in the main dining room face the open kitchen, the grounds visible through the dramatic floor-to-ceiling glass. “I wanted to blend the traditional architecture of the old building with something contemporary,” Labron-Johnson says. “Pubs, especially old ones, are very dark . . . the challenge of [renovating] this space was to make it feel bright.”
While diners see dishes prepared and plated, the menu on the table gives little away: only single ingredients are listed — lovage; fermented potato bread; asparagus; shiso; gooseberry; large black pig; pollen — the number of which is uncorrelated to how many courses will come. (We end up eating 12, including snacks, petits-fours and a couple of extra dishes, because surely we should try the specials?)
“We just say, ‘We’re going to cook for you,’” Labron-Johnson says. “For British people it’s a bit of an odd concept — there’s a bit of risk involved.”
If there is risk, there is certainly reward. Osip is spectacular. From start to finish, the menu is joyous, creative, skilful, clever and fun. Lovely little handheld bites like the “spring taco”, a green matcha tortilla with asparagus, foraged herbs and a spicy mole verde sauce, and a pig’s cheek croquette in a lettuce cup, drive yearnings for 100 more. The latter is a side to the one meat course of Somerset-born-and-raised black pig, which, via its sirloin, belly and a Toulouse-style sausage, tastes like it lived on a diet of herby aromatics.
Every dish is, quite frankly, a banger — there are no skippable tracks on the album and the bonuses are mega hits: lobster tail, simply grilled to let the flavour of the Cornish crustacean shine, with a delectable bowl of claw and other bits in a shell sauce. The fromage course is, modestly speaking, cheese on toast: malt loaf soaked in local apple brandy with a thick slice of camembert-like Bath Soft cheese oozing across the top. Hook it to my veins.
The meal culminates in a toothsome celebration of the farm’s bees: a burnt honey tart with crème fraîche ice cream, pollen and mead, which with a marshmallow-like honey meringue, offers a hit of nostalgia with the flavour of s’mores.
With waistbands at capacity and feeling smug about staying the night, we retire upstairs after a nightcap around 10.45, and Labron-Johnson is still at work. The last seating won’t be finished until after midnight.
In the morning, tables are laden with Tamworth speck ham, hay-smoked trout, fresh cheeses, yoghurt and the most delicious house-made granola, as well as preserves, fresh fruit and honey from the bees. There are freshly baked pear and cardamom pastries, and perfectly cooked jammy eggs. It is quiet and peaceful in the restaurant, with just a couple of chefs focally preparing for lunch service.
Labron-Johnson is also milling around. At this point we have known him for less than 24 hours and seen the admirable work ethic, the attention to detail, the care. He’s genuinely delighted when we tell him how comfortable our room was. I ask if he has any time to relax. “I’m on hand more at the moment,” he says. “Everything is still new.” New for now. I suspect there will be more to come.
Details
From London Paddington, Osip is a 1h35 direct train journey to Castle Cary station, from which a complimentary transfer can be arranged via the venue (it is first come, first served, and if unavailable, a taxi to the venue takes 15 minutes). Visitors can also take a train from London Paddington to Bruton (just over two hours with one change), with a five-minute transfer or taxi from there.
Niki Blasina was a guest of Osip. Rooms start at £240 per night including breakfast and transfers to and from the surrounding train stations. The tasting menu is £125pp. Open Tuesday–Sunday; closed Monday. Book at osiprestaurant.com or concierge@osiprestaurant.com
Have you dined at either Osip 1.0 or 2.0? Share your experiences in the comments below. And follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @FTGlobetrotter for all our latest stories
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