The Old Pharmacy
Bruton, Somerset
A plate of Westcombe saucisson, some Landrace sourdough bread and Somerset butter, crisp farm crudités with smoked cod’s roe swirled with excellent olive oil… the chalkboard menu at Merlin Labron-Johnson's laid-back wine bar (next door to Osip) on Bruton High Street reads like a sequence of tempting bar snacks. It is just that. And the temptations continue: slices of silken pelatello di lonzardo (cured rare-breed pork) with honeyed slips of just-ripe melon; a bowl of caponata with satisfying layers of agrodolce flavour; delightfully crisp little panisses piped with peppery rocket aïoli topped with a fat, salty anchovy fillet. Dishes arrive as and when ready, so the table can fill up – but let it be, because this is a place for relaxed, tasty, wine-bar grazing. A larger dish of grilled octopus could have done with less ‘nduja, and the sweet of tooth may bemoan the absence of choice. There’s just one dessert on offer, though that’s barely a hardship – especially when it’s a luxurious chocolate mousse with Chantilly cream and cherries. Wines bang the drum loudly for the organic and the low-intervention brigade, from a skin-contact Catarratto from Sicily’s Barraco winery with its hints of salinity and smokiness to a zippy Zibibbo from the same maker.
