The Ethicurean, Somerset, restaurant review But one whiff of an autumnal bonfire and I waver. The pull of conkers, misty breath and coppery hedgerows grows irresistible. So last weekend, when the season's first damp smoke drifted over the garden wall, I lit out for The Ethicurean in north Somerset. This would be a sort of sit-down walk, I reasoned: a deliciously bucolic feast, against an impeccably rural backdrop, with no need for wellingtons or tranquillisers. I say "rural," but The Ethicurean stands a mere half-hour's drive from Bristol (tractors permitting) and barely five minutes from bijou Bristol airport. "It's probably quicker to get here from Paris than London," said my husband, a country GP well used to negotiating lanes barely wide enough for a donkey cart, as he squeaked the car past yet another lorry. We turned in at the signpost by a weathered, red-brick wall, parked and walked up to an enclosed kitchen garden. The setting is deliciously Downton, with clipped yew hedges and the statutory wheelbarrow laden with squash, presumably destined for use by the restaurant: The Ethicurean is owned by a team of four young friends who fulfil the promise of the name (ethical epicurean, geddit?) by sourcing much of their produce from the garden and its surroundings. The restaurant occupies an Edwardian glasshouse set into one side of the garden. This fulfilled my countryside-from-a-safe-distance brief, with views over Wrington Vale and the Mendips rising beyond. It looked like some modeller's fantasy - all that was missing was a Hornby train whirring through. Our corner table stood by a windowsill laden with picturesque junk: bottles, pheasant feathers, bits of log, a jar of sage leaves with, bizarrely, a few dead twigs stuck in it. The Somerset set was out in force, with grandparents and parents quaffing red wine from big glasses while children made loom-band bracelets. The wine list, mostly under £40, is entirely Old World; surprisingly for a place that sets such store by the local, there are no English wines on it. Food prices are reasonable without being a steal, averaging around £8 for a starter and £17 for a main, although you can pick up an impeccably sourced ploughmans (Westcombe Cheddar or homemade ham hock terrine) for £9, which won't scare the horses. There's no grim "kid's menu" but I spotted a waitress carrying a slice of cheese on toast drooling molten cheddar - more of that Westcombe, I presume - for a solemn toddler. My "Somersazerac" cocktail, a play on the New Orleans Sazerac, was comfortingly reminiscent of Gee's Linctus, a tipple I developed a taste for at the age of five when I would sneak capfuls from the bathroom cabinet (I was a docile child). The good doctor stuck to tea, like the Yorkshireman he is. I started off with seared tongue, a Pyrex jug of steaming amber duck consommé served alongside it. The meat nestled among snippets of rainbow chard and a creamy-yolked poached egg: it was tender and faintly sour, as if poached with vinegar, with none of that fatty grittiness that makes cold tongue such a trial. "Bacony," said the GD - than which there can be no higher praise. He meanwhile opted for a salad of pear and bitter leaves, with crunchy rye bread "crisps" and pickled shiitake mushrooms. The Ethicurean gang love their pickling, as does every self-respecting up-to-the-minute young chef on the block. You can even buy their homemade fermentation jars, with an airlock welded into the lid. This, one of the tetrarchy told me, means "you don't need to burp the jar" when making sauerkraut or kimchi. The GD liked his salad - "There's enough going on to be interesting," including dabs of a brown jelly made with the local Butcombe beer. My main course, a neat little brick of pork belly, was preternaturally tender, a mouthful of porcine squidgy-ness, the fat on top crisply golden. The crackling was light and puffy and scattered across the plate like meaty Quavers, along with paper-thin slices of beetroot (pickled, natch) and nasturtium leaves. It lacked a lick of salt but there was oddly none on the table; this didn't feel like the sort of place to be dictatorial about seasoning. But never mind, as the GD's hake - a perfect, quivering, barely cooked hunk of gelatinous joy - came bathed in a clam, bean and bacon broth that probably took the salty thing a bit far. A couple of spoonfuls purloined from the bowl and splashed on to the pork and saline equilibrium was reached. Pudding arrived; a proper plum pudding: not the Christmassy sort, but a steamed treacle sponge with chunks of sweet-sour plum embedded in it, and a beaker full of a delectable eggnoggy cider brandy custard. A scattering of anise-flavoured sherbet gave an eye-popping tang to the occasional spoonful. Clever cooking, this. The GD's pear and black cardamom tart was pleasingly smoky, but pedestrian in comparison. We paid up (a steepish £86 given one cocktail but no wine) and headed to the car: a bracing 50-yard walk to round off a perfect country lunch.