Chard Restaurant Guide

This “lovely local gastropub” – originally a 16th-century coaching inn where Devon, Dorset and Somerset meet – has won a dedicated following over 15 years for “food and service that make it stand out from all other local eateries”. Food and drink are sourced as far as possible from the three counties, and “though relatively expensive for the area, prices are absolutely worth it for the meal you get – the taster menu is just superb”.

Nicholas Balfe – who honed his art working at hip London venues like St John, Rochelle Canteen and Moro – decamped to this rural village in 2021, and has transformed a bank into a “charming” modernist dining room where you can opt to sit at the chef’s counter for added drama. The “terrific value lunch” (£35 for three courses) remains a highlight of the “interesting and inventive menu”, with added charms including the “convivial atmosphere” and beautiful rooms available if you wish to stay overnight. Reflecting the restaurant’s focus on seasonality, Balfe leads occasional foraging experiences in the fields and woodlands around the venue.

2024 Review: Try to nab a window seat – or in fine weather a place on the terrace – if you visit this brilliantly well-situated venue. All reports rate its “good fresh fish” from “rather a short menu” (which also features local beef as an alternative to the seafood). One supporter also muses that it’s “quite expensive – is it trading on its excellent position”?

2022 Review: Cass Titcombe's “small, cosy and friendly restaurant overlooking the village square” offers “just the perfect balance of everything”, say fans – whether that’s the much-foraged, Mediterranean-style food, or the fine interiors, courtesy of partner Louise. The duo also run an excellent shop, Brassica Mercantile, across the road, mixing homewares, foodie books and gourmet treats (including from Borough Market).

An “understated” but “comfortable” inn dating back to the fourteenth century, and where the “very experienced and charming owner” (Silvana Bandini, who honed her talents at the Bath offshoot of the Pig hotel empire) oversees the “cheerful staff”. “The decision to focus on small plates continues to prove spot-on” – a lengthy selection, outweighing heartier mains including burgers, steaks and pizzas – while there are a range of appealing spaces in which to eat them, such as “a more formal dining room; a conservatory, and a garden for when outdoor dining is possible”. For a more casual visit, “the bar is very popular” too.

This “lovely little neighbourhood restaurant tucked away in a sort of arcade” is “head and shoulders above the competition in the culinary desert of Taunton” and has been “reliably excellent over many years”, charming its legion of devotees by means of an “always interesting menu (fantastic daily specials to boot)” and a “very professional and likeable team” led by chef Richard Guest and FOH Cedric Chirrosel, the founders back in 2011. Top Tip – “a mainly game-led seasonal menu before Christmas was particularly good, without being overly festive in an Xmassy way”.

“Set in beautiful rolling countryside” in a “very rural part of Devon”, a “charming, civilised and completely individual” outfit – think Anglo agriturismo – set up by Hugo Guest and wife Olivia five years ago in the Georgian house where he grew up. The “interesting set menus” (three-, four- or six-course) are inspired by Italy and France and, by all accounts, ex-Fat Duck chef David Knapman’s food is simply “top-class”, making it an “absolute treat both to stay the night or to go for a meal”.

One of the better Pigs! – an Elizabethan mansion where the menu is “not haute cuisine”, admittedly, but where the solid cooking (much sourced from the “terrific kitchen garden”), and “brilliant breakfasts” (“the full works is a plateful”) mostly “deliver on expectation”, even given the considerable hype attached to the chain. The most hard-hearted review this year says: “It’s nice enough, and in an area of weak competition it’s worth the trip, but if the setting wasn’t so great, I don’t think the food would taste as nice!”. In autumn 2026, the litter is to expand to eleven with the birth of the Pig at Groombridge, Tunbridge Wells.

Radhika Mohendra’s and Jollyon Carter’s “wonderfully tasty” dishes that combine British and Asian flavours are the attraction at this “cosmopolitan” outfit, “tucked away down a back alley in a little town in West Dorset”. The menu is neatly divided between ‘Dumplings (steamed or fried)’ and ‘Not Dumplings (hot or cold)’; the former are filled with everything from organic curried lamb to Dorset red cheddar.

“Convivial” 14th-century pub-with-rooms in a picturesque village – “cosy in winter and very pleasant outside in the summer” – whose charms of a thatched roof and log fires have been boosted by a £2million refurb from newish owner, the St Austell Brewery. The “traditional pub food” is “very well cooked”, and the “great staff” guarantee a “warm welcome”.

2023 Review: Two vintage railway carriages near the sea and harbour in the former West Bay station constitute this “delightful” venue. The cooking is sometimes seen as the weakest link (“they try hard, without really hitting the spot”), but most reports are upbeat, citing “above average food” in an “unusual and quirky setting”. Since our annual diners’ poll concluded, change is afoot with a new arrangement introduced in autumn 2022, which sees fine dining from chef Chris Chatfield’s seasonal menu in the newer ‘Beeching’ carriage, and relaxed dining in ‘Brunel’, from the First World War, with both menus available in the dog-friendly ‘Station House’.

2024 Review: As the name suggests, “a great, intimate atmosphere” is found at this seventeenth-century village inn, which is “a cut above the usual for style and service”. Charlotte Vincent was crowned ‘pub chef of the year’ in the 2023 Great British Pub Awards – she sends out “a varied range of dishes, nearly all locally sourced and precisely cooked”, such as a bar snack of roasted marrow bone and Porlock Bay oyster with garlic butter and sourdough bread.

“Everything a country pub should be” on the edge of the Somerset Levels – locally born chef Alasdair Clifford (ex-Chez Bruce and Harwood Arms) serves “excellent and interesting variations on well-liked dishes” in the dining room, there’s a “friendly reception” from his wife Victoria Collins, and a “separate (dog-friendly) bar” that still feels appropriately pubby. They also run a bakery in an old cider barn on the farm next door, and offer three different accommodation options.

2022 Review: “Like being on the Med, only with local IPAs and bitters” instead of a carafe of wine or Campari – an “excellent” two-year-old seafood restaurant (primarily) where diners can enjoy “friendly service”, “superb” sharing platters and the “most extravagant Niçoise ever!”. After a meal, make sure to check out the neighbouring arts hub Town Mill.

2022 Review: Former River Cottage chef Dom Moldenhauer is now “cooking whatever he can source that day” and serving it in “very different” four-course evening set menus at this new venture, following on from a pop-up during the first lockdown. The venue is open Wed-Sat, and by all accounts the “food is superb!”.

2023 Review: This 500-year-old building in a “beautiful part of Somerset” now houses an “excellent dining pub” that “serves up top-class modern British dishes using brilliant local ingredients”. Chef Olly Jackson and his manager wife Rebecca “used to run the nearby and sadly missed Langford Fivehead hotel”.