14 miles south of Bath, Frome punches well above its weight in Somerset’s food scene. A former wool-trading market town that fell into post-industrial decline, it has spent the last two decades drawing in savvy independent operators who have decamped from London and Bristol in search of a slower pace, all without abandoning their professional ambitions.
The change has been profound. The Times named Frome the ‘sixth coolest town in Britain’ back in 2014, the Sunday Times has crowned it ‘Best Place to Live in the Southwest’ three times since 2018, and property prices have responded accordingly (bit of insider trading from a Times editor, perhaps?). Swanky Babington House is up the road, Bruton’s gallery scene is a short drive away, and a whole host of tedious types in waxed gilets have made Frome their weekend base.
Don’t be put off by that. The same forces also brought serious cooks looking for affordable rent and a customer base willing to pay for quality. The alumni list is telling: chefs from Moro, Monty’s Deli, Quo Vadis, to name but a few. The result is a food landscape that, pound for pound, punches well above what you’d expect from a town of 28,000 people.
Here are the best restaurants in Frome.
The High Pavement
Ideal for Moorish tapas, sherry and charcoal-grilled meat…
This family-run Moorish tapas restaurant on Palmer Street requires reservations a month or two in advance, a lead time that would raise eyebrows pretty much anywhere in the country, in this economy, let alone this mellow corner of Somerset.
Yet that’s how long you’ll have to wait for a meal at The High Pavement. But once finally ensconced in the buzzy dining room, you’ll be in safe hands. Stuart and Aimee have run the place for over a decade, originally opening only Friday and Saturday evenings with a weekly changing menu, before expanding to Thursdays and shifting to the tapas format that better suits their style of cooking and the huge demand for a taste of that cooking.
The kitchen works a charcoal grill for dishes like barmarked curls of Cornish squid with zhoug and nicely barked venison with a sticky Pedro Ximénez reduction, alongside cold plates of muhammara with Turkish pepper paste and pomegranate molasses, white bean hummus with a truly pungent confit garlic alioli, and deep-fried goat’s cheese with date syrup and almonds. There’s a careful balance at work between sweet and savoury in each of these dishes, with a judicious use of acidity keeping things light and lively. Only a couple of plates top a tenner, too, which only furthers the appeal.
The sherry list runs to around 20 bottles, and the terraced garden (fitted with a sail for inclement weather) provides unexpected outdoor dining in the heart of town. The locals-know-locals atmosphere means half the restaurant often recognises the other half, which adds to the party feel on busy nights, as copitas are clinked across tables by ruddy-faced regulars.
Website: thehighpavement.co.uk
Address: 8 Palmer Street, Frome BA11 1DS
Bistro Lotte
Ideal for all-day Francophile indulgence…
The Good Food Guide describes this French bistro-with-rooms on Catherine Street as ‘Gallic to the core, a real blast from the past’, which captures the intentional throwback quality of Bistro Lotte pretty succinctly.
The restaurant runs from an Edwardian townhouse whose high ceilings and panelled walls suit the opulent ambition, with the open kitchen adding theatre to the ground-floor dining room without so much bluster that you can’t hear your dining companion groan. Outside tables and a glass-frontage catch the sun from dawn to dusk, ideal for your first coffee of the day or a French 75 before dinner.
For breakfast, it’s beautifully laminated pastries. Then, it’s croques, galettes, tartiflette and crêpes for lunch, before dinner rolls out the big guns; escargots, boeuf bourguignon, steak frites and confit duck leg. The cherry clafoutis and dark chocolate mousse with Chantilly cream continue the theme for dessert. A coronary episode is your petit four. That’s the vibe here and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
There’s a carefully sourced quality amongst all the richness. Meat comes from neighbouring Cayfords Butcher (literally next door, sourcing from local farms), sourdough is baked daily, and your resplendent plateau de fruit de mer has been furnished by the good folk at Kingfisher Brixham (available to preorder when the season is right). Keeping things inclusive, the wine list arrives in keenly priced carafes. Bottles of Wignac cidre rosé offer something different, a move we’d highly recommend.
Bar Lotte, a few doors up Catherine Street, extends the offer with cocktails and live music from local jazz and blues acts twice weekly. Ten guest rooms above the bistro make it a practical overnight option, especially when you’re getting carried out in a stretcher, food coma (or, perhaps, too much of that cider) having rendered you legless.
Website: bistrolottefrome.co.uk
Address: 23 Catherine Street, Frome BA11 1DB
Rye Cafe
Ideal for baked goods in beautiful surroundings…
Owen Postgate opened Frome’s original Rye Bakery in 2017 with a clear philosophy: affordable food focused on flavour and responsible farming, realised in the milling of their own heritage wheat from local Somerset farms. It pays off; Rye have built a reputation as one of the country’s best bakeries.
This, their café, sits prettily in a converted Victorian chapel on Frome’s Whittox Lane, complete with retained church organ, original pews upstairs, and the kind of vaulted ceiling that makes eating a bacon sandwich feel vaguely ecclesiastical.
The café menu is built around seasonality and a stated commitment to ‘ecologically minded farming’: heritage sourdough, sausage rolls with a heavy pelt of black pepper rolled into sweet pork mince, seasonal Danish pastries (a recent festive redcurrant number was bliss), and savoury options like pig cheek and ham hock stew for those hanging around ‘till close at 4pm.
It’s not all they do, though; the Rye operation has expanded considerably since those early days…
Website: rye-bakery.com
Address: 22 Whittox Lane, Frome BA11 3BY
Rye Bakery & Pizzeria
Ideal for pizza night at the station…
Rye’s second site at Station Approach now houses the main bakery operation, complete with an in-house mill and a custom-built wood-fired oven installed in 2022. It functions as bakery, shop and pizzeria.
Pizza nights go down Thursday to Saturday from 5pm, with wood-fired bases and toppings like nduja with hot honey, glassy red onions, fresh ricotta and fior di latte. The wine bar attached places a heavy onus on natural wines from smaller suppliers and the outdoor seating area fills on summer evenings when DJs and live acts perform.
The broader Station complex also incorporates Owen’s Sausages and Hams (their weekly-changing ‘silly sausage’ hot dog pulls crowds), South Indian specialists Lungi Babas (pre-order thalis and masala dosas via their website to guarantee availability), and cheese specialist The Cheese Lord, whose raclette station keeps Frome fat every Friday through winter. The whole space functions as something between food hall and outdoor festival when the weather cooperates, and is a lovely place to hang out.
Website: rye-bakery.com
Address: Unit 1 Station Approach, Frome BA11 1RE
Little Walcot
Ideal for seasonal British bistro cooking and bold wine…
The Frome outpost of Bath’s Walcot Group arrived in April 2024, occupying a split-level site at the foot of cobbled Catherine Hill. Billing itself as a neighbourhood restaurant, Little Walcot’s kitchen credentials are perhaps a little more serious than that: menus developed by Stephen Terry (Great British Menu winner who earned his first Michelin star aged 25) and Piero Boi, with day-to-day operations handled by Jack Stallard, formerly of The Pig near Bath.
The Walcot Group also runs Green Street Butchers in Bath, which supplies the dry-aged beef that appears across the menu (their sandwiches have led to us naming the butchers one of Bath’s best places to eat).
On looks and paper, so far so good. We’re pleased to report Little Walcot is successful in its delivery, too, backed up by a cooking style that’s seasonal British executed with professional precision: hand-rolled pasta, home-baked bread, sustainable seafood arriving direct from boats.
The group also owns Solina Pasta in Bath, so a dedicated pasta section makes sense. Solina sends over the pasta fresh, and the team work their magic with it on site. A recent pappardelle with pork and fennel ragù was a winner, a reassuring presence on a cold winter’s evening.
Indeed, comfort food is the register here. A Blythburgh pork chop arrives pleasingly mi cuit, covered in its cooking juices alongside a hard baked, off-bitter apple sauce, whilst roast monkfish comes with a shellfish and butterbean stew, cavolo nero and datterini tomatoes. The latter was as good as it sounds.
The restaurant has a great looking dining room – beautifully low-lit, plump burgundy banquettes, booths and chairs, bare wood tables and brick walls. The burgundy trim seems to echo the seriousness of the wine list, of which a house Gamay – the Walcot Group’s own collaboration with Beaujolais producer Christophe Pacalet – is a highlight at £11.50 a glass or £46 a bottle.
Downstairs works as a neighbourhood bar: morning flat whites, after-work Guinness (they claim – quite rightly – the best pour in Frome), cocktails taken seriously. The Sunday roasts pack out the upstairs dining room and of course, come sponsored by Green Street Butchers. As if the whole ‘all bases covered’ thing wasn’t yet obvious, they also host regular music nights.
Website: littlewalcot.com
Address: 8 Stony Street, Frome BA11 1BU
Palmer Street Bottle
Ideal for an afternoon lost to cheese and beer…
Part bottle shop, part tap room, part cheese counter, Palmer Street Bottle is run by the same team behind Bath’s Kingsmead Street Bottle and festival favourite The Whole Cheese, so the priorities are clear.
Ten taps rotate through craft beer served by key keg, with breweries like Kernel, Sureshot and Vault City making regular appearances, alongside natural wines and local ciders. The food exists to accompany the drinking, which is exactly as it should be in this setting. Sourdough toasties ooze with Ogleshield, the rarebit arrives with a great little coleslaw and plenty of cornichons, and the sausage rolls (meat or veggie) do the job, too.
Cheese boards and charcuterie provide more substantial grazing if you’re settling in for the afternoon. Which, as it happens, is one of our favourite things to do in Frome. It’s a small room – three tables at the front, a few more at the back – but the kind of place where staff will talk you through what’s pouring with genuine enthusiasm rather than just listing ABVs.
If you’re keen to keep the party going after close, a refill station lets you take beer or wine home by the bottle, and the deli counter sells cheese to go. Cheese and wine party back at yours, then?
Website: palmerstbottle.co.uk
Address: 11 Palmer Street, Frome BA11 1DS
Café La Strada
Ideal for Frome’s best ice cream…
Frome’s first coffee house, opened in 2002 by Jude Kelly at the end of medieval Cheap Street where a leat (a small channel carrying water from the river) still trickles down the middle of the road. The building is one of Frome’s oldest, spreading across multiple levels including an upstairs dining area and outdoor seating for watching the foot traffic on market days.
The draw beyond the smooth, satisfying coffee is La Strada’s ice cream side quest. Here, ‘Senso’ gelato is made in-house from organic Ivy House Farm milk from nearby Beckington (the same farm that supplies Harrods, Fortnum & Mason and Harvey Nichols), and flavours mix permanent options (pistachio, rich chocolate) with seasonal rotating choices (jasmine and honey, Pimms sorbet in summer).
It’s seriously good ice cream, whatever the weather.
Website: cafelastrada.co.uk
Address: 13 Cheap Street, Frome BA11 1BN
The Frome Independent
Ideal for a rummage and refreshment…
Not a restaurant, admittedly, but impossible to omit from any eating guide to Frome. This monthly street market takes over the town centre on the first Sunday of each month from March to December, closing streets across the entire town centre to accommodate over 200 traders and drawing around 80,000 visitors annually. The operation is managed by a team of four Frome residents and staffed by local event workers; the not-for-profit structure feeds money back into the community.
The food offering is split between the Somerset Farmers’ Market section (cheese, cider, local produce from established growers) and the street food traders, where quality varies but the best stalls justify the crowds. It’s a regularly changing roster, so we won’t play favourites here.
The flea market and designer-maker sections provide distraction (as if you needed it!) between eating, live music stages dot the route, and the atmosphere tilts closer to festival than farmers’ market. Parking fills early; the park and ride from the health centre is the sensible option. Arrive before 11am to beat the crowds, or after 2pm when stalls begin discounting.
Website: thefromeindependent.org.uk
Address: Frome Town Centre (first Sunday of each month, March-December)
The Holcombe
Ideal for a destination meal in the Mendips…
A short drive south of Frome, up into the Mendip Hills, The Holcombe sits at the highest point of a village that recorded just eight households in the Domesday Book. The views across to Downside Abbey are predictably lovely, and the nearby church doubled as a Poldark filming location, which gives you a sense of the prestigious landscape.
Alan Lucas and Caroline Gardiner, both trained chefs who spent 30 years running catering and events companies in London, took over the pub in November 2019. The timing was (their words, not ours) terrible – they spent most of their first year redecorating rather than serving customers. But the result is an 11-bedroom restaurant-with-rooms that’s picked up 2 AA Rosettes since reopening, which is no mean feat.
The kitchen works from an on-site garden and polytunnel, which supplies much of the seasonal produce for Lucas’s contemporary British cooking. It’s a genuine garden-to-plate operation rather than a marketing flourish: the gardening team and chefs collaborate on planting schedules, and anything not used on plates goes into stocks.
The dining room centres on a double-sided log burner, with a terrace for summer evenings. Note the limited opening hours. Wednesday to Sunday only, with lunch service restricted to Friday through Sunday. That said, the Holcombe is very much worth planning for; a destination meal away from the Frome crowds that’s one of the best in Somerset. What a lovely place this is.
Website: theholcombe.com
Address: Stratton Road, Holcombe, Somerset BA3 5EB
Next up, we’re off to Bruton for more eating and bleating. Care to join us?
