What the experts recommend
La Follia 2 Newts Folly, The Square, South Harting, West Sussex (01730-923831)
There’s an “essential simplicity” to this small Italian café, in the West Sussex village of South Harting, says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday. The room is “cluttered in the best possible way” – all fairy lights, antique dressers and vintage kitchen equipment. And the food, prepared by chef Lucy Green, is at once sophisticated and charming. You won’t find bowls of pasta or tagliata here; instead, just sandwiches and toasties, as well as a selection of excellent cicchetti (small plates). Of the latter, you might be offered “oozingly lactic” burrata with a “whisper of chilli and shards of preserved lemon”; or bruschetta topped with cacio e pepe beans, in an “inspired take on the Roman pasta classic”. But it’s the “mighty” focaccia sandwiches that most impress: mortadella and burrata with pistachio pesto and aioli; or an oozing mozzarella and prosciutto toastie. Unsurprisingly, the room is “perennially packed” with appreciative locals. “Book early, or prepare to wait.”
Joséphine Bouchon 315 Fulham Road, London SW10 (josephinebouchon.com)
Chef Claude Bosi and his wife, Lucy, have opened three new restaurants in London in just over a year, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. First came Socca in Mayfair, specialising in Provençal dishes. Next up was Brooklands on Hyde Park Corner, which soon “picked up a brace of Michelin stars”. And now comes the one I’m most excited about: a Lyonnais restaurant named after Bosi’s grandmother. Everything about the place is achingly oldfashioned: the walls are covered in French vintage posters, and the wine waiter comes “armed with a ruler to measure the amount of the house wine you have poured from the bottle plonked on the table”. The cooking fits the mould: there’s “perfectly dressed” steak tartare, leeks vinaigrette, and a selection of more challenging Lyonnais classics, including brawn and “arse-stinky andouillette”.
While you can certainly knock up an impressive bill here, you can also eat extremely reasonably – especially if you stick to the menu de canut (“silk workers’ menu”), which is £29.50 for three courses. A “beautifully executed act of remembrance”, Joséphine Bouchon is a “hand rested lightly on your back, telling you everything will be alright”.
The Cotley Inn Wambrook, Chard, Somerset (01460-62348)
The Blackdown Hills, on the DevonSomerset border, is a part of the West Country with “much going for it”, says William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph: it has swathes of ancient woodland, some pretty hamlets, and “absolutely no phone signal”. And if you visit, there’s also a “mighty fine pub”, which is “gloriously entrenched” in the culture of the region: many of the ingredients are produced locally, and even the crockery is fired in a nearby pottery. Our meal begins with impressive bar snacks: scampi with a crisp skin and the “softest flesh”, and deliciously crisp halloumi fries. The mains that follow have “precision and poise” – notably a “beautifully orchestrated” plate of red mullet with fennel, butter beans and chorizo – and for pud, there’s a “nice little frangipane tart”. Service is charming, and the wine list is “excellent”. We struggled to tear ourselves away. Lunch for two: £79, excluding drinks and service.