The Place
Higher Farm is a 50-acre regenerative farm near Castle Cary in Somerset, with views of glorious countryside and Glastonbury Tor. Among the delights on offer is a deceptively simple restaurant, the Farm Caff, which opens for lunch and dinner from Wednesday to Sunday. The plain signage that leads you there belies the treasure that awaits.
The Vibe
Think: a grown-up playground for our times. This is a place where top-notch food, grown where possible on the farm and otherwise by trusted local producers, sits alongside a wild swimming lake, market garden, sauna on wheels, yurts you can stay in and elegantly colourful borders humming with bees. Central to the revelry is a bar stocked with cocktails and local cider under a giant stretch tent edged with festoon lighting.
To Drink
On a sunny Friday lunch time in June, our mood was playful but necessarily abstemious. The Negroni on the menu – made from Higher Farm gin, rhubarb and juniper oil – winked incessantly at us. When we ordered one to share, the waiter came back charmingly brandishing ‘a pair of baby Negronis’. Genius!
To Eat
The small menu, printed sparingly on brown paper, changes weekly. You don’t have to share but it’s easy to do – and we did. We went first for the ricotta and tomatoes, a mixture of heritage tomatoes and sun-blushed ones on a moussey bed of ricotta, topped with tiny basil leaves and pickled lemon rinds. Beyond delicious. Next came perfect poached trout with a whisper of dill and a round of the tastiest and most delicate potato salad. Our pork belly, beautifully crackled on top and mesmerizingly soft underneath, was accompanied by carrot purée and a quince mustard that will be hard ever to forget. Oh – and we had chips. Massive, chips, slow-cooked in butter and then deep fried. The whole thing was an exquisite pleasure. It was difficult to call which was prettier: the edible flowers on our plates or the wild ones in the jar on our table.
To Finish
With real life knocking on the door of this fanciful paradise, we couldn’t cram in the puddings of salted fudge, strawberry sorbet and clotted cream cheesecake. If Zoom calls and deadlines didn’t await, we’d have fallen hard for all three. Instead, we had a quick flat white and hit the dusty road, as if it had all been a dream.
The Bill
We spent £82.12 on a seriously good lunch for two. A treat, sure, but worth every penny.
