For those who ‘have appetite, will travel’, Merlin Labron-Johnson’s endeavours are putting Bruton on the map above all else. In 2019 he opened Osip, a farm-to-table restaurant at the end of the highstreet. Then, in 2021, bistro and epicerie The Old Pharmacy next door to it. Both restaurants have received little else but praise. Osip in particular, described as ‘pleasing and poetic’, ‘elegant’, and ‘bucolic’ by the national press.
Though he honed his cooking skills in Switzerland, France, Belgium, and London, Merlin is no stranger to the South West of England. In fact it was while at school in Totnes – another small town in this part of the country – when he first got a taste for hospitality. “I went to an unusual school,” he tells me, “and we had a great chef who would cook for the students, but it wasn’t free. So most of the students had school lunches, but I didn’t. But I wanted to.”
Merlin’s restaurants eschew meat almost entirely (“there’s no point in serving meat or fish when we’ve got veg to use up”). But when they do serve it, it’s a bit of duck confit here, or a small bowl of pheasant broth there. And it’s not dissimilar to how Merlin cooks at home – which, despite running two restaurants, he has the odd time spare for. “The other day I was making a Lancashire hotpot, and it was one of the best things I’ve ever cooked for myself. I used a bit of lamb neck, a bit of lamb belly, and a lamb heart, and it cost me £6. [Cooking with meat] doesn’t have to be expensive.”
