Time to savour: A taste of slow travel on Somerset’s new food trail

Famed for its cheddar and cider, this foodies’ paradise has a lot more to showcase on a new gastro tour launching this summer. Natalie Paris goes armed with an empty stomach

Fresh sips at Burrow Hill Cider Farm (Natalie Paris)

“This is the Isle of Avalon; it’s fertile,” said Tia Cusden of Wild Garden, who runs market gardening workshops. “People love growing food.”

She was telling me about Somerset and its thriving gastro-scene – the essence of which has now been captured in a new Somerset Food Trail, launching in July, which will showcase some of the southwest’s best artisanal food and drink producers.

The county is known for its cider and cheese – the limestone cliffs of Cheddar Gorge conceal ancient caves where Cheddar Man, a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer, once lived and where modern humans still store the famed cheese of the same name to this day. But the trail also incorporates everything from sausage-making to chocolate, along with tractor rides and organic farm tours from locals like Tia.

Indulge in a cheese tasting at Felthams Farm (Natalie Paris)

There will be options to cycle, walk or drive between farm shops, orchards and cutting-edge country restaurants, with the main food hubs found in Wedmore, Bruton and Somerton. To try it out, we decided to stay just outside the last of these, in a three-bedroom, newly refurbished farmhouse. Decoy Farm cleverly uses its space, with richly decorated lounges full of contemporary art and heavy, Ikat-fringed fabrics, selected by interior designer David Hutton.

A relaxing garden, complete with a long-grass meadow and hot tub, has views reaching across a wide, green plain dotted with sheep, while the stylish, dark-wood and marble kitchen has a fridge large enough to accommodate delicious trail finds (and rest-assured, there are plenty of these to savour).

For our taster of July’s trail, we hired bicycles from Parrett Trail Bikes in nearby Langport, cycling a loop to Burrow Hill Cider Farm. After wheeling between river meadows buzzing with insects and hedgerows thick with cow parsley, the orchards at Burrow Hill were the perfect halfway point for a picnic.

Forget cheddar: the award-winning, modern soft cheeses here look to Europe for their inspiration

As it was Saturday, the farm’s double-decker bus – a Glastonbury Festival regular – was selling cider to the sound of a honky-tonk piano, while the Temperley family, who also make Somerset Cider Brandy, offered tours of their copper distillery. Biking back, we stopped at Muchelney Abbey, where the medieval monks, we learned, once survived on a “diet” of their own beer and local eels (the latter now in severe decline).

As a nod to such heritage, Renegade Monk is a powerful cheese washed in ale made by Felthams Farm, where we were greeted by four snuffly, rare breed sows the next day. Forget cheddar: the award-winning, modern soft cheeses here look to Europe for their inspiration and flaunt striking, punk-art labels. During the food trail, Felthams is inviting visitors in for tastings, to identify butterflies and to see the pigs being fed the whey leftover from cheesemaking.

To appreciate the variety of producers thriving in Somerset, compare a visit to Wilkins, a traditional cider farm near Wedmore, with the cyder bar at The Newt hotel, near Bruton. At Wilkins, cloudy farmhouse cider is served from dusty barrels in a barn as thick with cobwebs as it is rosy-cheeked merrymakers. The Newt, meanwhile, is a country house hotel where experiments with champagne production techniques create premium “cyder” that’s a long way from scrumpy.

Snuffling sows at Felthams Farm (Natalie Paris)

Even winemakers are doing interesting things on Somerset terroir, with Wraxall Vineyard offering lunches and Smith and Evans inviting thirsty punters for tastings as part of the trail. The latter produces award-winning sparkling wine from SSSI-protected land near Langport that’s covered in 30 different types of grass – gert lush indeed.

Hidden down a tiny lane from Bruton, Westcombe Dairy is an unmissable stop for cheese, saucisson and craft IPA from The Wild Beer Co., who brew on site. Westcombe’s unpasteurised cheddar and other cheeses feature on menus up and down the country – as a side project, the curious minds here have been reproducing centuries-old cheddar recipes, while also attempting to diversify their soil to improve flavour. This doesn’t mean they shun modern techniques though – far from it. In fact it is Tina the Turner, once the world’s first cheese turning robot, who adjusts the 25kg, cloth-bound truckles in their cavernous store. “There is nothing artisan about turning cheese by hand,” chuckles cheesemaker Tom Calver. “It hurts.”

So much quality local produce gives rise to fine farm-to-fork restaurants

Unsurprisingly, so much quality local produce gives rise to fine farm-to-fork restaurants. The top tables to book in Somerset currently are those at Michelin-starred Osip in Bruton, Holm in South Petherton and 28 Market Place in Somerton.

At the newest of these, Holm, director-chef Nicholas Balfe relishes the connection he has made with local suppliers. “It’s what makes having a restaurant here so special,” he said. “In London, you can get anything, but here we can buy it all direct.” That night, a plate of his colourful, zingy pickles featured rhubarb grown by a local woman, while earthy, wild-garlic gnocchi was accompanied by salad leaves dropped off by another local resident.

Although the official Somerset Food Trail with all accompanying bells and whistles is a July-only affair, many of the producers can be visited year-round if given notice. But the trail’s true appeal is that it makes it easy to sample a whole range of flavours, from Somerset ricotta to Dowdings’ intriguing new discovery, “Breakfast Cider”.

Bioaqua’s pioneering aquaponics (BNPS)

It might also get you thinking about sustainability. Pasture-fed dairies and market gardens echo a return to traditional farming methods. Yet the revolutionary aquaponics on display at Bioaqua, near Wedmore, where vegetables subsist on water enriched by nutrients from the waste of fish that swim in pools nearby, could one day change the way food is grown – not just in Somerset, but the world over...

Travel essentials

Getting there

Great Western Railway serves Bruton, Castle Cary and Frome from London Paddington, from 1 hour 45 minutes.

Staying there

Decoy Farm, near Somerton, sleeps six from £1,335 for seven nights through Luxury Coastal.

More information

The Somerset Food Trail runs 15-24 July, see website for activities and participants.