Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Bridgwater
Hardens guides have spent 34 years compiling reviews of the best Bridgwater restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 6 restaurants in Bridgwater and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Bridgwater restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Bridgwater Restaurants
1. The Castle Bow Restaurant
British, Modern restaurant in Taunton
Castle Bow - TA1
2023 Review: With its Art Deco-style interior, this local landmark’s traditional dining room provides a heartily traditional environment. It has yet to reopen for lunch and dinner post-pandemic, but is currently dedicated to the service of afternoon tea, for which – on limited feedback – it comes recommended.
2. Brazz, Castle Hotel
British, Modern restaurant in Taunton
Castle Bow - TA1
This 18th-century reconstruction of an original Norman castle is a local landmark, and has been run as a hotel by the same family for the last 70 years. Too limited feedback for a rating this year, but its contemporary bar-brasserie – which has its own pavement entrance from the town’s shopping area – wins the odd-shout-out as a useful and flexible all-day venue, from its “good brunch” onwards.
3. Augustus
British, Modern restaurant in Taunton
3 The Courtyard, St James St - TA1
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”.
4. The Rising Sun
British, Modern restaurant in Knapp
Knapp Road - TA3
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”.
5. Queen of Cups
Middle Eastern restaurant in Glastonbury
10-12 Northload Street - BA6
The 17th-century coaching inn exterior belies Ayesha Kalai’s decidedly different outfit (but then again it does exotically draw its name from the tarot deck, in a nod to its mystical Glastonbury setting). On the menu, “interesting Middle Eastern food” served in small-plates style (including “wonderful [laver]bread” falafel or hogget and apricot merguez). Playfulness is the order of the day at this outfit, overseen by ‘kitchen mumma’ (as she calls herself on the website) Ayesha and team.
6. The Barrington Boar
British, Modern restaurant in Ilminster
Main Street - TA19
“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.
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