Midsomer Norton, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

This former private home eight miles from Bath features a “restaurant with a great vibe” and a “really diverse wine list” – making it “perfect for a night away”. The famous ‘25-mile menu’ is a doddle here: the property has its own 30-acre deer park, the largest kitchen garden in the group, an orchard, a smoke house, and even its own mushroom house with a viewing window.

2022 Review: Opened in June 2021, this tastefully revamped old pub is the work of the Eggleton family – the team behind The Pony & Trap (now known as The Pony Chew Magna). The offering, realised by chef Jordan Meagher, “centres around proper ‘pub classics’”.

2023 Review: The “food and wine are always interesting” and are “still as good as ever” at engaging Anglo-Scottish chef Gordon Jones’s former sandwich shop on the southern edge of town. There’s “a single tasting menu available” (the only choice is whether to have 7 or 9 courses) and it comes as a complete surprise, with each dish introduced as it arrives at your table (and no vegetarian or other options).

2023 Review: A “quirky and interesting” local with a “good atmosphere” serving a “creative menu, with cooking of a consistent high standard”. It makes a “fantastic pub for Sunday lunch”, with “outstanding roasts”.

Independent wine shop off Queen’s Square whose dining room and heated wood-framed marquee offer a “casual” setting for a rather superior small-plates menu (crab soufflé, beef shin croquettes, pan-roasted pigeon breasts, cod with pork-braised cannellini beans and chorizo, veggie options, cheese boards and desserts) to pair with vintage Burgundies or other discoveries in the fine-wine selection.

2022 Review: Taking afternoon tea in this “wonderful Georgian setting with a trio playing during the meal” – and the Roman baths next door – is to wallow in English history, with literary visitors from Jane Austen to Charles Dickens as your guides. The nibbles – “beetroot-cured smoked salmon with homemade blini”, perhaps – are a secondary consideration, “but well worth having!”.

Celebrating three decades as part of the Brownsword Hotels stable in 2024, this lavish getaway in two adjoining Georgian houses has much to love about it, from the four-acre gardens to the UK’s only L’Occitane spa. Dining options are split between the dining room, open for afternoon tea or a £98 per person three-course dinner showcasing “skilful cooking of delightful food”; and the more casual ‘Pantry & Terrace’ which also offers breakfast, brunch and lunch.

Harwood Arms co-owner Mike Robinson’s “superior steakhouse” is the fancier of two dining options in the “formal setting of a well-restored Georgian house, now hotel” (from the “modern and quirky” Indigo chain). A visit begins with cocktails in the vault-based speakeasy, before heading upstairs for a seven-course dinner during which “the star is game” – and “oh, the venison! Sourced from the chef’s local estate”, it’s “melt in the mouth” and “just brilliant”. “Good value for money” too – just “go there and enjoy a magnificent meal in this lovely city”.

“Always a treat to eat” at Adam & Martine Fellows’ “friendly, very enjoyable fish-oriented restaurant” – an established feature of the area for over 20 years which moved to this smartly decorated site in 2022, where they also run a cookery school. Fans “love being able to see what’s happening in the open plan kitchen”, say the food “melts in the mouth” and “a definite plus is that every course comes with its own vegetables… it’s a pet hate when they are extra!”

Handsome Georgian pub near the Royal Crescent with a relatively ambitious seasonal menu, “excellent wine list” and “stunning Sunday roast”; the courtyard garden is an added attraction in the summer. (“I don’t get to Bath enough but next time I do, this will be on the shortlist for sure!”).

“Top-quality ingredients, expertly cooked, and very warm, attentive service” are much appreciated at this Regency-era townhouse venue from accomplished chef-patron Rob Clayton, who trained under the legendary Nico Ladenis and headed the kitchen brigade at Bath Priory. His “classical style is perhaps a bit old school, but there’s nothing wrong with that…” – “don’t be fooled by the simplicity of the menu, or what could be perceived as high prices: this is worth every penny!”

It’s “been around for ever”, but this “quirky” bistro in a fine Georgian house happily “still keeps its standards very high”, with newish owner Matthew Lisanti (who took over from the longtime former landlords in 2021) overseeing the “short, simple and superb” modern European fare. “Great, friendly service” and an interesting list of indie wines also make it “a cut above” in these parts.

“One of the best in Bath” (that “tourist city largely dominated by chains”), founded in 2016 by Chris Tabbitt, whose CV includes stints at London’s Bibendum and the Old Bridge hotel in Huntingdon, where he met his FOH wife Sarah Olivier. It “seems quite European in the interior” (down to being “fairly cramped”), but that only befits its “excellent French-inspired” bistro cooking, which is offered for a “reasonable” price.

This decade-old wine merchant and sharing plates restaurant is the flagship of the Beckford Group: a six-strong outfit based in Wiltshire and Somerset (and whose side arm is hit bath and body product brand, Bramley). Perhaps, it’s “more about the wine and ambience than the food” (there are over thirty wines available by the glass, and relatively cheap rates for corkage), and perhaps it’s “a little expensive”, but then again this feel-good place is, according to all reports, “one of those restaurants where you don’t really mind”. Top Tip – the outdoor tables make a “great place to catch the early evening sun come summertime”.

2024 Review: “Outstanding views from the dining area” and “lovely garden” over the surrounding countryside (top walking territory) characterise this well-liked stone gastroboozer; there are plaudits too for its “small menu of good classics” (plus latterly small plates).

2024 Review: Limited but positive feedback, including from a London-based reporter, on this revamped former branch of Lloyds in Totterdown, which opened in 2021 and relaunched in spring 2023 with a menu based around open-fire cooking.

Set in “delectable surroundings” on the Longleat estate – this “traditional pub with rather better food” (from an “interesting menu”) is “an altogether enjoyable and relaxing experience”. It even has a ‘treatment cabin’. Dating from 1736, it’s now part of the Beckford Group and offers 16 bedrooms along with “quality service”.