William Sitwell reviews Da Costa, Bruton: ‘Gorgeous Italian gobbles blended with local ingredients’

Da Costa's large open kitchen and comfortably spaced wicker and wood seating makes for a very restful space
Da Costa’s large open kitchen and comfortably spaced wicker and wood seating makes for a very restful space

There are plenty of reasons to get irritated by the context of Da Costa. It’s part of Hauser & Wirth, a Zurich-founded, US-accented, global art business which says that its Somerset location is on a former ‘farmstead’ (it’s a farm!), hosts events that are ‘on view this fall’ (it’s autumn!), describes the Roth Bar as a ‘fully functioning site-specific artwork’, (it’s a bar!) and explains that Durslade Farmhouse is available for ‘private stays’ (it’s for rent!). Then there’s the art: I once found myself looking at a set of steps covered in ropes and paint and wondering if it was an installation or something a tradesman had left behind.

The firm is one of the reasons glossy magazines describe Somerset as ‘trendy’ (try explaining that to a local Bruton sheep-farmer) and somehow an adjunct to Notting Hill. As someone who also lives in Somerset, I frequently have to explain to dunces that not everyone in the county lives in Bruton, that my patch is almost two hours’ drive away, and that it is we, on the fringes of Exmoor, who live in ‘cool’ Somerset.

The menu is in keeping with a traditional Italian joint
The menu is in keeping with a traditional Italian joint

Which tiresome slurry I trudge through before my visit to Da Costa, new to Hauser & Wirth (it was formerly called Roth Bar & Grill), and inspired, we’re told, by Mr Wirth’s maternal grandfather, who hailed from northern Italy and once ran a small restaurant. The place, a former barn – wooden floorboards, exposed beams, bare brickwork – is decorated with Italian posters and maps, old copper pans and, hanging from the beams, baskets and upside-down chairs (bonkers but sweetly effective).


There is a large open kitchen with a big wood-fired oven which, along with the comfortably spaced large wicker and wood seats, makes it a very restful space. It’s an assembly cemented by what one might call smart hotel-style service; that is, skilled, professional, demure and, frankly, really bloody nice.

As is the menu. In keeping with a traditional Italian joint, there are antipasti, pasta and risotto, fish, daily specials and stuff from the wood-fired grill. And the Venetian offering blends with local ingredients, exemplified by a really excellent bacchus wine, under their own label, Maid of Bruton; simple, effective branding and an exquisite sip.

A fabulously fun plate of crayfish spaghetti
A fabulously fun plate of crayfish spaghetti

From the list of ‘breads’ we started with gnocco fritto, crisp little balls of dough covered with soft mortadella and gooey white cheese. Then came baccalà fritto (salt-cod balls): gorgeous gobbles glorious with that bacchus.

The real fun began as we shared first a dish of scallops in a yellow ‘Venetian spices’ sauce that hinted at saffron and curry; and a fabulously fun plate of crayfish spaghetti. The head and claws of the seafood emerged from the pasta 
(redolent of the extravagant lobster at sister restaurant Mount St in London’s Mayfair). The spaghetti was rich in crayfish with its tender bite, and seemed laced with that same Venetian spice mix, a minor repetition I shrugged off, having had worse issues to deal with in life.

A textbook tiramisu to finish
A textbook tiramisu to finish

We also had a salad of locally grown leaves scattered with breadcrumbs which, barely touched with dressing, was rather dry, although this somehow worked with the fellow dishes, which also included an utterly beautiful wood pigeon. The chef, being more worshipper than fancier, delivered a perfectly tender and pink bird sitting on a potato pancake (frico) and in a glorious sauce of mushroom and truffle.

We shared a textbook tiramisu to finish. And I left grappling with a final irritation: that there isn’t such a fabulous place closer to me.