The list of Britain’s 100 best restaurants has been published - and contains absolutely none from Bristol.
The latest Estrella guide to the UK’s best restaurants has been published, and claims to be the ‘definitive guide’ to the ‘top 100 restaurants in the UK’.
But the nearest one to Bristol is an hour’s drive away in the recently-hipster Somerset market town of Bruton, where a London chef called Merlin Labron-Johnson has relocated to the West Country and opened a restaurant called Osip. That small 30-seat restaurant in Bruton is number 65 on the list of the top 100 restaurants, but there is no space for any of Bristol’s much-vaunted culinary experiences.
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The restaurant scene in Bristol has struggled since covid, with the closure of the Pony and Trap in Chew and its relocation to premises in North Street, the closure announced last month of Casa Mia. So for anyone in Bristol wanting to sample the delights of one of the 100 best restaurants in the UK, they will need to head south into Somerset and visit Osip in Bruton.
The Estrella guide waxes lyrical about the place - including the fact that there is no menu that diners can check out before they get there, because the restaurateur Merlin Labron-Johnson is keen to only use locally sourced food.
“As a result, no menu is presented to guests on arrival with dishes dictated by what the restaurant has been able to get its hands on that day,” the guide states. “A meal will feature snacks and freshly baked bread with mains and a dessert and might include house charcuterie; egg ravioli with wild garlic; and brioche baked in herbs served with hedgerow butter.
“Drinks follow a similar theme, with wines sourced from small-scale, sustainably-minded winemakers, ciders from local farms and homemade soft drinks, juices and ferments made from wild and homegrown ingredients,” it added.
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