Brazz - Taunton

Brazz - Taunton brings you brasserie eating at its best; their aim is to provide good food and drink at popular prices to a wide audience. The feel is bright and modern yet elegant, buzzy and stylish - with its trademark fish tank, walls adorned with hand-painted Italian ceramics and specially commissioned art by local artists.

Brazz is a bar, café and restaurant all rolled into one. Open from morning till late it is the ideal location for morning cappuccino, a quick lunch, an after work glass of wine or that celebratory dinner. An entirely flexible approach.

The bar is a comfortable affair offering a range of draught and bottled beers, many wines by the glass, cocktails, organic fruit juices and a 'grazing' menu - their tapas, if you like, featuring houmous and bruschetta or mozzarella and sun blushed tomato.

The restaurant, refreshingly, is happy serving up straightforward, unpretentious food without ceremony and with smiling service. A typical meal there could begin with deep fried whitebait with aioli or an interesting pork pâté with green shed rhubarb and orange chutney served with homemade brown toast. They also have Cornish rock oysters to entice you while their grilled goats? cheese with Mediterranean vegetables and bruschetta will delight vegetarians.

The main courses could pose quite a dilemma with choices ranging from whole grilled plaice with new potatoes to fishcakes served with creamed leeks or South Devon rib eye steak with hand cut chips, vine tomatoes and onion rings. There's also a rare beef salad with horseradish cream and penne pasta with courgette and blue cheese.

Puddings are of the comfort variety featuring treacle tart with clotted cream, vanilla crème brûlée although they also have ice creams, sorbets and thankfully, a good selection of British cheeses served with biscuits. They also have some excellent bin end wines which offer good value; however they are available only by the bottle.

Whether you are alone, impressing over business, celebrating with a large party, with the children, dropping in before or after the theatre or looking for that romantic setting, Brazz is where you'll want to be.

Situated next door to The Castle Hotel at Taunton, Brazz offers a total contrast to the traditional surroundings and style of the hotel. Brazz is now very much an established part of the city's eating out scene, and like the hotel, is included in all the major food guides.

For more about Brazz, visit their extremely informative Website.