Warminster Restaurant Guide

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”.

Born in 1740 but updated for modern times – a country inn on the edge of the rolling parkland of the Fonthill Estate, not far from Salisbury. “Too many pubs serve food that is overpriced and disappointing, but not here though” – a “fab place” where you can expect “superb cooking every time”, be it suckling pig, wood-fired pizzas or local meat and game (“a lunch featuring duck lingers long in the memory”). Want to overnight? There are plush bedrooms and lodges but the pick of the accommodation is the ‘Arch’ which sits at the entrance to the Fonthill Estate’s driveway.

“Just heaven”. “You can’t get more idyllic than a meal here sat in the most beautiful walled kitchen garden” of Darren Brown’s Wiltshire destination (est. 2016) – “out of the way (but handy for the A303)” – “it is so relaxing, and such a treat and the surroundings are so beautiful with their mixture of flowers and vegetables and herbs”. “On the Cote d’Azur it would work fine most of the year. In Wiltshire it is often cold and wet at which time you eat indoors in Spartan conditions (at which times ambience 2/5 at best)”. When it comes to the cooking (much of it over an open fire), they “really make an attempt to be green with lots of own-grown stuff, retired dairy cows for meat etc. you can even pick a bunch of flowers to take home!”. But what is plain “magical” to some, is more nuanced to sceptics, who say: “problem is, the food’s not that good, with relatively little choice in practice and combinations that are seasonal but don’t always work”. Likewise service can be “enthusiastic but not always knowledgeable”. Still, mostly the vibes here are positive. Top Menu Tip – “They bring you a non-alcoholic fizzy wine to kick things off and it’s the best thing – not sweet but deliciously refreshing. Some good bread and a dip to kick things off, then the main event, you either pick meat or veggie; then all the sides, with veg straight from the garden all so fresh and beautifully accompanied with herbs and butters”.

“A lovely traditional out-of-the-way pub with lovely traditional pub food”, this ancient thatched village inn is these days owned and run by Ben Maschler (son of restaurant critic Fay and a former operations director at Soho House) and long-term fans say “it never fails to please”, with a menu that offers hearty country dishes alongside more ‘pubby’ options.

“Every flavour is unique with dishes that are exciting, different and a real taste experience, but not in a whacky, OTT way – just letting the ingredients speak for themselves” – at Merlin Labron-Johnson’s acclaimed destination; which “has moved out of Bruton (about ten minutes down the road to the middle of the countryside)” – and now occupies a 17th-century coaching inn, offering four minimal-chic rooms named after rivers in Somerset. One first-time visitor was wowed by “a miracle of flavours from the simplest ingredients” (“it’s the vegetables and foraged herbs that stand out”), all abetted by “inspirational and creative” presentation. “One of those meals where you want to lick the saucy remains off every emptied dish, and the service is so friendly that you actually can!”. The eleven-course tasting menu is £150 per person (with lunch nine courses for £95 per person). Top Menu Tips – “fallow deer is especially good as is the fried parsnip (and I don’t like parsnips!)”. “‘Old favourite’ dishes such as a game pithivier and the squid, pigs head and black truffle are totally amazing. Beetroot taco with salted egg yoke – the flavours are just incredible. Another stand out is the meadowsweet icecream, so unusual and the most fabulous texture”.

2022 Review: “A friendly and welcoming atmosphere” marks out this thatched fifteenth-century gastroboozer, where the “high-quality fresh local produce” (but also more adventurous sourcing, including from Paris’s famous Rungis market) leads to some “interesting variations on the traditional style”.

This “very classy hotel, restaurant and bakery” in a snazzily converted 18th-century congregational chapel anticipated Bruton’s gastro boom by several years when it opened back in 2008, and remains “an experience not to be missed” under relatively new ownership – a menu mixing wood-fired pizza with modern British and European small plates “always comes up with the goods”, while the venue takes full advantage of its double-height ceilings and south-facing terrace for al-fresco dining.

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”.

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).

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”.

“My favourite spot for an Asian meal in Bath” – “Noya cooks homely Vietnamese food that’s not fancy or pretentious, but boy is it good, a fantastic meal at a great price” (“I always leave with a smile on my face”). The “diminutive” host learned to cook as a seven-year-old, feeding her three younger siblings in a Hong Kong refugee camp while her parents were out at work; she now showcases her “fabulous, very authentic dishes” at this “really cosy little restaurant in a small Georgian house”. “Do book as it is very popular, and deservedly so”.

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!”.

“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.

Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan was – as of mid 2025 – rumoured to be on the verge of buying a £1 billion stake in Richard Caring’s restaurant empire, of which this famous brasserie chain is the crown jewel. Presumably, he’s more interested in ‘rolling out’ the brand in The Gulf and beyond rather than dropping by for a Salmon Fishcake and ‘Ivy Chocolate Bombe’, but if he’d asked the opinion of our annual diners’ poll, we’re not sure that he’d sign on the dotted line. “How can a restaurant with this heritage produce such uninspired, tick-box food?” is a question merited by its poor ratings, ditto what explains the “very slow and disinterested service”? The answer may be that “you don’t come here for the food, obviously” but for the “gorgeous” interior design and “picturesque” locations that continue to underpin their appeal. Let’s hope for the Sheikh’s sake that the middle classes of the Arab World are as undiscerning as those from the UK!

A world-renowned authority on all things caffeine and three-times UK barista champion, Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood serves “the best coffee in Bath by a mile” at this “cool space” that is “out of the way of tourists but always packed”. He opened it in 2009 after encountering ‘Third Wave’ coffee culture in Melbourne, and followed up with a second branch in Leather Lane, London, two years ago.