Bruton is compared to Montecito in California (Image: Jonathan Backmaster)
I'm in a boutique at the bottom of a small rift in Somerset Hills, home to the small town of Bruton. You'll reach Aperitivo at 6pm.” And that's no joke.
Breton, the town of Bijou, is known recently as “The British Montecito”, due to the high number of local celebrities with important means, and is certainly a living embodiment of a good life.
On the top of the hill, the former OSIP, Uber-Trendy, and the Star-to-Star pub from farm to table were recently named Restaurant of the Year in Good Food Guide.
Currently, the stylish all-white conversion at the “Go to Second Star” venue brings more igloos than the last order.
With just 38 covers for dinner, the tasting menu from young chef owner Merlin LaBron Johnson starts at £125 per person.
Meanwhile, behind the nearby hedges are the fewer spotted A-listers homes, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Mariella Frostrup, Stella McCartney and former Prime Minister George Osborne.
The 3-bed end will set £525,000 for £525,000 in Bruton. Add £125,000 to the bungalow, and from there the price increases.
Even the staff at the independent store here are the cuts mentioned above.
They include Debs Dufton, the elegant original “gray model” who supports owners Cas and Ahmed with trendy smooth interiors at the bottom of the cute high street.
Debs Dufton by Smouk Interiors (Image: Jonathan Backmaster)
Debs was discovered decades ago after being “stopped” in Harrods.
She takes me up the narrow boulevard and into the chapel – “the town's cultural hub” – a stunning conversion of a former Methodist church offering arts events and specialized baked goods from bakeries on-site.
Here, fashionistas and “proper locals” will bite through their daily craffins (a croissant rolls up inside a muffin can and 4.50 pound reworked with today's flavor: Cotswolds cream liqueur and pipe the mascarpone into dark chocolate.
“Bruton is a very cultural place,” raves Fabs, examining the 1,895-pound beniowrain rug from the High Atlas Mountains, hanging from the Smooke warehouse-sized walls. “I'm single and there's a lot of arts events and things to do every night. There's a very interesting social mix of old hippie types and very sophisticated people, and they're all creative.”
She especially enjoys a “world-class” Sunday jazz afternoon at Modern Art Gallery Hauser & Worth. Here, top practitioners include Ian Bellamy, who lives in nearby Fromm.
Hauser & Wirth is also home to a farm shop that sells premium hoodie treasures such as fermented celeryac, capers and mustard seeds (12.95 pounds in a 350g jar) and premium wagu fillets.
Back in the chapel, dismantling the hazelnut pain au chocolate (£4.50), London artist Johnny's midnight shifts the giant £7k canvas and a modern spiral following an abstract oil show at the Art Deco Gallery Push down the stairs. Mezzanine level space.
Jane Warren of the Chapel (Image: Jonathan Backmaster)
This isn't the typical small town coffee shop with watercolors on the walls and a bit of homemade shortbread. The shortbread here is Earl Grey flavor and costs £3 per slice.
Johnny gave a picture of the four sons of TV host Sarah Beanie at his home in Balham, London, before lifting his stick and moving to Breton.
“Bruton is a market town revived by artists' freedom ho,” declares Johnny. “It's a mixture of local locals. The farming community that has been here for generations. Gentlemen who landed, divisors. And Londoners coming in, and tourists. They nail it here I think it did. Locals live in tourist spots without seeing Somerset cream tea.
“Yes, the chapel is a cafe, but it also smells bad for the gallery. I love it.” So is Bruton living or exceeding the hype of “Montecito”?
Jane Warren and artist Johnny Midnight (Image: Jonathan Backmaster)
It certainly isn't a place filled with boutiques of luxury clothing. In Bruton, you're more likely to bump into an A-list celebrities on your way to a local concert or search for artisanal sourdough pamphlets than scouring towns for Prada, Versace and Sunshine.
After all, this is Somerset. Rainy days and muddy walks are delicious in this countryside landscape of farms and tractors.
However, the only charity shop, Brainwaves has some lovely designer items, including the £14.50 Dino Maglini Italian Leather Brogues.
And when bakery chain Greg opened a branch here 16 months ago, there was a fuss. At the time, one dissatisfied resident appealed to the newspaper. It's like placing a sex shop in a secondary school. ”
Walking along the high street (Image: Jonathan Backmaster)
However, it soon becomes clear that some of the locals are a bit convulsive about all the recent post-Covid changes to town. With reporter notebook in hand, marching through miniature high streets in the brightest coats, I'm a pretty obvious development and the locals start to accuse me.
“Yeah, I hope you're going to write about what it really is,” asks Dilly Brownlow, who has lived here for 38 years. “I'm tired of celebrities and people who write a lot of nonsense about Bruton.”
She then confirms all the rumours, especially the changes in cultural values when incomes flood the town. Shift illustrated in the new look of the village shop that she emerged to mourn the past.
And the shop itself acts as a microcosm of all the changes that have rocked Bruton.
Picturesque street (Image: Jonathan Backmaster)
It used to be a normal village store “run by Cyril and sells newspapers,” but now it is painted with bright turquoise and is called the Organic Good Community Cafe (quirky black handwriting). . It certainly looks more like a Notting Hill boutique than a place you go to cans of beans.
The recent influx of arrivals caused Dilly to not cause an end to the problem. She is a curator of a small local charity arts event, but struggles to compete with many other cultural veins that run through the Bruton scene. Look at the shop notification board where posters from a typical Bruton concert are on display. No less than Steve Jolliffe from Prog Rock Tangerine Dream, who performs a variety of works, including Bruton Suite. This led to a major diary clash with Elvis Tribute Night, who is promoting for the local charity.
“It's gone so far from a very sleepy village where nothing happened,” Dilly complains. “I want them to first check what else is going on the same night.”
In the past, she had no problems getting her butt in the seat even on the week nights. “Now I want to have two clear audiences at night…but I want to go to my own tangerine dream. Too much is needed in the local community. It's happening. This may be my last year.”
Plaque commemorating John Steinbeck's stay in Bruton (Image: Jonathan Backmaster)
The general consensus is that the Montecito label is a bit lurking. Especially because we know that true brutenights have infinitely precious things: culture and class. Even the alms that allow for independent living in the middle of the High Street, founded 400 years ago following a bequest from local benefactor Hugh Sex irre, have the original lead drainage and perfect lawn. It looks like a small Oxford University with a quad.
After all, when you are surrounded by adorable hamstone cottages dating back to Domes Day books, who should compare it to the California enclave?
This was discovered by John Steinbeck, the legendary American author of Grape, whom he discovered in town in 1959 to retreat and write about for eight months. At the time, Apes and Eden in the small bookstores were the town's hardware stores, and the blue plaques in the building remind us of Steinbeck's preference for locales. “I felt like I was in Bruton's home more than I'd ever had anywhere. A lucky accident attracted me to this place.”
Lyndon Peters from ape and Eden Bookshop (Image: Jonathan Backmaster)
Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962, the year after his last visit to town, where he recorded his experiences in length to a friend.
Currently in a shop owned by Lisa Pickering, the cashier-elect is her son Lyndon.
“For a small town, it's a cosmopolitan. It has a small city mentality and there's always this connection between art and music,” he says. And then the opening was “Bruton on the Map” by suburban Gallery Hauser & Worth in 2014, Lyndon points out.
Tequila woman at a ross bar (Image: Jonathan Backmaster)
Then I head to the gallery's Roth Bar and head to my last stop. It's not a regular pub. Of course it's not. This is a Bruton. The huge artwork, the size of a double decker bus, which is easy to stretch, is elevated throughout the bar and is made from a collection of televisions, tape recorders and other ephemera.
Below that, three elegant women swirling tequila in real leather designer cowgirl hats with edgy fabric trim designed by Jesse Cowgirl.
Jesse is here with her mother, catering and farmer Jenny White, and her mother's friend Cordelia Plunkett (artist who worked with David Bowie and Adele) and gallery owner Mandy Dubbo. Masu.
“There were big departures from London to Bruton during Covid, including fashion designer Phoebe Phillo, former creative director of Chloe, and filmmakers Sam Taylor Johnson and Stella McCartney,” Mandy said. Masu.
Add Cordelia: “There are a lot of very cool women in Bruton. Make that your headline.”
It might be just 4pm, but we need more shots. “It's always Bruton's tequila time,” laughs Janey.
And the woman from the Bruton Party.
