9 Excellent Things We Ate In The West Country Last Week.

A trip to Bath yielded plenty of deliciousness in Somerset and Wiltshire.

As has become something of tradition here on ingredient, now that I’m back from another trip I’m here to tell you about everything delicious I ate in a new location, helping those of you who travel to eat as much as I do choose where to eat when you’re on the move, whilst allowing the rest of you to go on a foodie travel adventure right from wherever you consume your Substacks, be it on your phone on the go, or like I do, as my treat to myself with my lunch each working day.

You can find my previous ‘what I ate and where’ dispatches from Vienna, Tuscany, Mexico and Barcelona by following the respective links. I’m off on another British adventure later in the month, so hit subscribe so not to miss out on what I eat there!

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Last week my parents and I went to Bath, just the three of us. We stayed in a lovely little holiday cottage just outside the city where the owner welcomed us with homemade cake and dahlias cut from her garden, and spent a few days exploring the historic buildings of the city and the surrounding countryside in Somerset and Wiltshire. The main reason for our trip was I’d booked my mother and I onto what turned out to be a fantastic all day Patisserie Masterclass at Bertinet Kitchen for her big birthday earlier this year, but in the days before it it was lovely to get away from it all together and to visit a few pretty old historic houses, and eat. We ate a lot.

Shall we start at the end of an absolutely fantastic meal in the restaurant hidden at the top of the Landrace bakery in Bath? Their 70% chocolate mousse (topped with both light and rich whipped double cream, caramelised Piedmont hazelnuts and a generous drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil for contrasting richness and a lovely grassiness) was one to remember, I think made just with chocolate and water for the unusual texture and clean, pure taste.

Landrace does small plates and does them well: I know restaurants who serve seasonal small plates with good local ingredients are two a penny these days, but when they’re done really well like this I honestly don’t care. Beetroot with roasted figs, ewe’s curd, grape must, extra virgin olive oil and herb crumbs, perfectly al dente wholemeal spaghetti with almost raw courgette, more evo, a good amount of garlic and lots of capers for a pleasantly briny, salty hit, or the local chicken breast (impossibly juicy with a good crispy skin) with, spinach, pan juices, end of summer borlotti beans and start of autumn girolles? Don’t ask me to choose between them because I can’t.

My long-form restaurant review of Upstairs at the Landrace is already up on my blog.

Finding somewhere to eat in rural England outside of the towns and cities that’s open on a Monday night can be a challenge, and as we did not want to start figuring out the Bath clean air zone / emissions based parking charges system until it was light, I found us a reservation at The Talbot Inn in the village of Mells.

Everything we had was pretty decent standard pub food, I had the fish and chips (excellent local fish) and my Dad had a lamb burger, but it as our starter that stood out. Not as common in our neck of woods, we knew we were in the West Country by the sheer volume of ham hock on the local menus: this ham hock terrine studded with nuggets of black pudding, topped with pickled yellow mustard seeds and served with generous dollops of pickled walnut ketchup was one to remember.

As we had a nice dinner booked somewhere later, exploring the village of Lacock in Wiltshire which is rather unspoiled, owned entirely by the National Trust and is where they’ve filmed a lot of films and television such as Downton Abbey, Pride and Prejudice and Harry Potter, we just wanted a snack. Okay so they were made with rough puff rather than shortcrust, but a couple of warm Cornish Pasties (a beef, potato and onion filling) from Lacock Bakery to eat as we walked around the village was declared by all to have been an excellent treat.

Staying in Wiltshire for dinner, the kitchen at Bunch of Grapes in Bradford-on-Avon did not put a foot wrong, but coming to write about our meal a week later it was my main course that really stood out for me: a beautiful Asian-inspired plateful of duck featuring perfectly cooked breast, a hoisin and sesame-crusted carrot, wilted pak choi, pressed potatoes, a roasted tomato, and a spring roll of duck confit. Every element had a fantastically bold flavour, but still worked together in a wonderful medley of tastes and textures. Now that’s what you call good restaurant cooking!

We ended our trip with a light dinner at Corkage in Bath, one of those wine-bar-meets-restaurant type spots where you can go in for whatever you fancy be it a glass and a snack or a bottle (or two!) and a feast. We shared four plates between the three of us, but two were particularly special: the roasted courgette with cashew miso cream, pomegranate and coriander salsa (again, it hit all the flavour and texture notes of contrast beautifully) and a luxurious pappardelle number with chalk stream trout, mussels, crab and just a tiniest hint of truffle.

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Missed grocery deliveries not withstanding and the couple of other commissions I’ve got on my cooking list I’m hoping to get a brand new recipe up for paid subscribers next week before I head off on my travels again. I don’t know what that will be quite yet, but I’m working on a rather excellent chicken traybake suited to autumn for October already I’m quite excited to share. Do hit subscribe so not to miss out!