A top restaurant critic who took football legend Gary Lineker to a Somerset restaurant has praised it in a review. The Times’ Giles Coren took the Match of the Day presenter and former football player for a meal at the Michelin starred restaurant, Osip ‘2.0’, in Bruton.
Osip initially opened at Number One Bruton in 2019 but is now located in an 18th century building near a tranquil pine forest. It’s run by chef Merlin Labron-Johnson, who formerly owned Portland in London, which Coren called ‘a perfect restaurant’ when it opened in 2015.
The critic visited the restaurant’s new location with an ‘old friend’ Jonathan Downey, the former CEO of Manchester United, Ed Woodward, and Gary Lineker – the day before the announcement of his departure from Match of the Day last month.
Coren described the 18th century building as being “white-washed to an ethereal, ghost-like presence in the misty countryside”. He also praised the “super-modern” show kitchen, the cosy log fires, and the young staff “bustling about in charmingly ill-fitting whites in a way that simply screams ‘World’s 50 Best’.”
The group chose to dine from the long and ever changing £125 set menu which is said to ‘evolve daily and is an expression of the Somerset landscape, using produce grown by the team on [Osip’s] nearby farm’.
After indulging in several dishes, Coren gave Osip an overall rating of nine and described it as being a ‘top place’, where you can stay the night, wander the gardens, tour the kitchen, and ‘do it all again for dinner and then breakfast’.
While Merlin Labron-Johnson’s influences as a chef are international, his menu at Osip is proudly ‘hyper-local’. In an age of concern over the environmental impact of imported food with high air miles, Osip sources 85% of its produce between two farms, orchards, and ten beehives. The Bruton community has also gifted Osip surplus fruit, wild foraged mushrooms, and land to help the restaurant stay as local as possible.
The menu is also changed regularly to account for the different ingredients that grow in different seasons. A representative for Osip said: “This connection to land is paramount to the ethos at Osip, and Merlin has produced a gardening rota for both kitchen and front-of-house staff to spend time working with the farmers in the fields. The farm also includes the location of 10 beehives that secures a single-apiary supply of seasonal honey.”