Bank House Cafe

Bank House Café opened in Spring 2007 but has already established itself as one of the more interesting places to eat and drink in Somerset. As a result it was chosen by The Times as one of the fifty best places in Britain to eat outdoors - the latest in a series of generous reviews the café has received in the few months since it opened.

The Times writer Hattie Ellis says: "Rambling roses and a tumbling mill stream are part of the secret garden with dining tables at the Bank House Café, a Georgian house in a medieval town at the foot of the Mendips".

Other favourable responses include Mark Taylor's five-star review for the Bristol Evening Post: "There are always those occasional chinks of light in the culinary wilderness and it's those that make this job so rewarding. The Bank House Cafe is more than simply a chink of light. It's a veritable beacon.

The Bank House Cafe occupies the ground floor of a stunning Regency house. It feels slightly Bohemian and almost like a grand old French chateau and, on the lunchtime I was there, there wasn't a spare table to be seen. This was a lunch that made me grin from ear to ear all the way home. Proper food - cooked with integrity by people who care."

The setting for the café - the medieval Square in Axbridge- is itself the hub of a superb visitor destination. Rising up behind the cafe, the Mendip hills are designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - offering first-class walking, cycling, riding, rock-climbing and even caving and potholing.

The Mendips give fabulous views over the Somerset Levels, one of the hidden gems of the South-West At Bank House there is café menu on offer during the day, with a wide range of restaurant-quality meals and drinks at lunchtime and dinners three evenings a week ... a fitting reward to people who been active in the Mendips throughout the day.

The much-praised food is locally sourced wherever possible and is mostly organic. It is complemented by European wine, including ones from the West Country, and local fruit juices, ciders and beers. The café also invites groups to pre-book for lunches or dinners. The red room in particular works really well as a venue for special occasions and celebrations - whether buffets or a la carte meals. The richly-planted walled garden - complete with tumbling stream - is a great venue for pre-dinner drinks or meals for small groups.

Bank House Cafe features a growing list of special events, from wine and food tastings, through musical evenings to relaxed discussions on a wide range of subjects.

Dishes from their menu might include - salad of broad beans, asparagus and Somerset smoked trout with crème fraîche and chilli jam; wild venison fillet steak with balsamic lentils; organic chocolate torte on a hazelnut base. Whilst, if you are not looking for something so posh, they have an interesting selection of imaginative pizzas.