Late autumn suits the Old Pharmacy, a restaurant and wine bar in an eighteenth century Georgian building on the high street of Bruton, Somerset. Here, the stripped wood and muted green wall panels make a handsome canvas for the season’s produce. A long, laid lunch table is dressed with drying mallow and vines, orchard fruits and old man’s beard; and on a ledge in the window, the already-fading light illuminates local pears, kabocha squash and a variety of Catalan tomato called colgar.
This is the first year that chef-proprietor, Merlin Labron-Johnson, has grown colgar tomatoes on his farm. Hung in clusters after their late summer harvest, they take their name from the Spanish verb for “to hang”, a routine that intensifies their deep umami flavour. “In Spain, colgars are grown specifically for pan con tomate,” says Merlin, “so they can eat it all year round” – which is exactly what we’re about to do. Plates circulate of thickly sliced house sourdough rubbed with garlic, then topped with salty grated tomato, olive oil and a butterflied sardine, its tin foil skin catching the table’s candlelight.
“The Old Pharmacy has always felt like an extension of my home,” Merlin announces to the table, welcoming the group of creative movers and shakers who sit around it, before introducing his festive menu. He explains that, when the restaurant first opened, it was more of an epicerie (it opened during the third Covid lockdown), with just a basic domestic hob, “to make and reheat soups and sandwiches”. The menu has since evolved to resemble more of a bistro – seasonal, simple, succinct; “everything we’re eating today wouldn’t be out of place on my kitchen table,” he says.
We toast with Somerset cider blended by Merlin himself. Off-dry and golden, it is the West Country in liquid form, and served with a label bearing the name of his flagship farm-to-table restaurant down the road, ‘Osip’, which also happens to be the first name on Merlin’s birth certificate (he was named after early 20th century Russian poet, Osip Mandel.)
Merlin grew up in south Devon and, in his teens, attended a democratic school, where lessons weren’t compulsory. It was there that he struck up a deal with the school cooks: he’d help with simple food prep and pot washing in return for free vegetarian meals, which he credits with his affinity for vegetables and early appetite for professional cooking. He started to assist at a local cookery school in Ashburton before, aged 18, training in continental Europe: first grounding himself with classical French techniques then moving on to experimental Belgian restaurant In De Wulf. But it was in London that he made his name: at 24, after just nine months as head chef at Portland in central London, he had earned a Michelin star and the admiration of critics and punters alike. He has since monkey-barred from one accolade to the next.
In 2019, Merlin relocated to Bruton, with its chocolate box charm and artistic community, to open Osip (which he thinks of as “less a restaurant than an auberge”) and – quite literally – to plant roots, establishing a farm to provide the restaurant with produce for the majority of the year. Just over a year later, the Old Pharmacy opened its doors, where we sit, TOAST-clad, today.
Merlin has assembled artist friends who work in myriad mediums. There’s his partner Olivia, an art director in fashion, wearing our Verspertine shirt, hand-embroidered by artisans in India; Kitten Grayson, a floral artist based in Bruton, who arrives wearing a floral headdress of that proclaims her botanical interests; also curator Jacqueline Moore, who has recently collaborated with Merlin on an exhibition of British craft at Osip, showcasing art inspired by the functional pieces that have long interested him (such as ceramics and tableware). It is part of what Merlin describes as “a journey in thinking about the restaurant experience as a whole, beyond cooking.”
Jacqueline’s partner, sculptor Mark Reddy, arrived today as he always does: with a small cherry wood soup spoon on the inside pocket of his jacket. Spoons are Mark’s thing, “complex forms, but with a simple function: nourishment.” Mark makes spoons for homes and restaurants, but also the totemic, person-sized ones currently on display at Osip, made with foraged wood – like spalted beech, maple, walnut – and which often incorporate the tree’s natural form in the resulting work. “They are a vessel that you use in a communal way – you come together to eat; in a sense, they represent people.”
Our next course is ravioli, which chef Zsuzsanna had painstakingly rolled out before cutting it into rounds. I watched as she then piped a circle of pureed potato around the edges of one circle and dropped an egg yolk into its centre, before covering it with another dough circle and crimping the sides, ready to boil. Now, one arrives in front of me, nestled in a cavolo nero sauce and topped with generous flakes of salted ricotta.
Sitting opposite me is painter and restaurateur, Jonny Gent – proprietor of London’s Sessions Arts Club – who Merlin describes as, “just fascinated by other people – and excellent value at any social occasion”. He is someone, I quickly find, who breaks the skin of small talk and gets down to discussing the guts of life. I spill mine, and he his.
Jonny studied painting at Edinburgh School of Art and spent a career around visual artists: what made him open a restaurant? “I didn’t live in a house until art school,” he tells me, explaining that his parents were publicans in Cheshire, and that his grandfather was a brewer, and that his granny ran a chippie in Merseyside. Hospitality runs in his blood. “I’d never known anything but this,” he says, gesturing around the table as the group, fuelled by cider and a little wine, chatters, “you know, the hum.” While he still sells paintings, restaurants have become a growing part of his business; but, he says, “I’m in it for the poetry, not the gross profit.”
Looking around the Old Pharmacy, I know what he means. Merlin is, according to Jonny, “about the poetry”, the bringing together not only of food and drink, people and place, music and lighting, art and design, but something ineffable – some might call it a vibe, others a kind of magic. It seems like no coincidence that this building was once an apothecary, dispensing the things its customers needed to feel well – which could also be said of a good restaurant.
Over poussin, roast potatoes and chard that’s been blanched and mixed with cream and bechamel, I ask Merlin about his own festive plans. Given the restaurants are likely to be busy in the lead-up to Christmas, will he want to cook? “Cooking at home is an act of relaxation for me,” he says, “it’s weirdly therapeutic. Making things that are slow – like hotpots or cassoulets or a roast – can be a nice way to wind down, interestingly.”
At Christmas, he says there’s always a roast bird, red cabbage, bread sauce. Roast potatoes of course, “and you can’t beat a boiled carrot”. What of dessert? Today’s quince pudding will reappear in December, Merlin tells me. “It’s my take on sticky toffee pudding,” he says, “and swims in a butterscotch sauce spiked with apple cider brandy”. Served with ice cream or custard, it is the stuff of magic with a Somerset twist, made by a man who goes by the name of a magician.
Quince Pudding
Recipe
For the cake:
550g raw apples or cooked quinces (or 225g dried dates)
100g sultanas
1 English Breakfast tea bag
65g softened butter, plus extra for greasing
150g dark brown sugar
2 eggs
175g self-raising flour
1tsp bicarbonate soda
For the toffee sauce:
190g butter
190g dark brown sugar
300ml double cream
Calvados or cider brandy
150g quince puree (made from blending poached quinces)
Method
Start the cake the day before. Chop the apples or cooked quinces into bite-sized pieces, discarding the cores. Arrange on a lined tray and place in an oven at 90°C/fan oven 70°C, with the door wedged slightly ajar with a wooden spoon. Leave for 3-4 hours, until the fruits are soft and chewy.
The next day, heat the oven to 170°C/fan oven 150°C. Put the dried fruit and the sultanas in a bowl with the tea bag and pour on 250ml boiling water. Allow to soak for 30 minutes.
Put the butter and brown sugar in a bowl and cream together. Add 1 egg, mix well, then add 3 tbsp self-raising flour. Add the second egg, mix again and incorporate the remaining flour, the bicarbonate of soda and a pinch of salt. Fold in the soaked fruit with the soaking juices and mix well.
Pour into a well-greased small loaf tin and bake for 40 minutes. Test the cake by inserting a skewer – if it comes out clean, it is ready; if not, return to the oven. Repeat until it is cooked; this could take up to 20 minutes longer.
Meanwhile, to make the sauce, put the butter, sugar and cream in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and cook until it has a nice sauce-like consistency. Add the calvados or cider brandy and the quince puree and season with a pinch of sea salt.
Slice the cake and serve warm, drenched in the hot sauce, with a spoonful of whipped cream or ice cream on the side.
Discover our collection of tableware and festive decorations.
Words by Mina Holland.
Photography by Lottie Hampton.
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