Root Wells

Should You Book Root Wells?

If you're weighing up where to eat in Wells and comparing Root against the Cathedral Hotel's restaurant or a more traditional Somerset pub lunch, Root wins on almost every criterion: sharper cooking, a more considered menu, better value, and a Michelin Bib Gourmand to back it up. The ££ price point with Bib Gourmand recognition is a rare combination in any English city, let alone one this small. Book it.

What Root Wells Is

Root Wells is the Somerset outpost of Josh and Holly Eggleton's Pony Restaurant Group, brought to 12 Sadler Street by chef Rob Howell, who launched the original Root at Bristol's Wapping Wharf. The format is vegetable-led small plates with a seasonally changing menu that draws influences from India, South East Asia, South America, Italy, France and Spain. The open kitchen sits within a dining room described as elegant and comfortable, and the view from the restaurant takes in Wells Cathedral directly. That visual anchor matters: you're eating well-executed food in one of England's most architecturally striking small cities.

The wine list skews organic, biodynamic and low-intervention, mostly European, with the majority of bottles priced under £50. That pricing philosophy matches the food: this is a restaurant that has thought carefully about what things cost, and it shows. Google reviews sit at 4.8 across 186 ratings, which for a restaurant of this calibre in a cathedral city is consistent with the Michelin committee's view. The Bib Gourmand has been awarded in both 2024 and 2025, signalling sustained quality rather than a one-year spike.

What to Eat Across Multiple Visits

Root runs a regularly changing seasonal menu, which makes the multi-visit case easy to argue. On a first visit, start with the cheese choux puffs: they are listed as a signature of the restaurant, described as smooth and ethereal, and they appear on the snacks section alongside cauliflower bhajis with tamarind sauce. These snacks are not a throwaway opener — they deliver equivalent flavour to the larger plates and set the register for what follows. Order them while you decide on everything else.

For a first visit, the directive from Michelin's inspectors is to let the ingredients lead: a spring menu included butter beans in a wild garlic and cavolo nero broth with ewe's curd, and Wye Valley asparagus with an Alicante sauce and a crispy-coated runny egg. These dishes are seasonal by design, so what you eat in spring will differ from autumn. That's the point. Come back in a different season and you're eating a materially different menu, not a variation on the same one.

A second visit rewards more deliberate ordering across the full menu. By then you'll have a read on portion sizing (small plates, so volume across four to six dishes per person is the right frame) and you can push further into the larger plates, then finish with the dessert section. Basque cheesecake with milk jam and rum baba with apricot and fennel cream have both appeared on recent menus. Neither is a token dessert — they follow the same logic as the savoury courses: a specific, considered combination rather than a generic close.

A third visit is the one where you can go deeper into the wine list. With most bottles under £50 and the list focused on low-intervention European producers, there's enough range to pair differently each time without the list becoming a project. Ask for a pairing recommendation from the floor team, whose service has been consistently described as enthusiastic and welcoming.

First-Timer Practical Guide

Root Wells is at 12 Sadler Street, a short walk from Wells Cathedral in the centre of the city. The format is sharing plates, so arrive with a group of two to four people for the most flexible ordering range. The ££ pricing means a full meal with wine should sit well within what most people consider a mid-range dinner spend in the UK , this is not a blowout occasion restaurant, but it is a serious one.

Booking is rated Easy, but the combination of a Michelin Bib Gourmand, a small city location, and a dining room that isn't large means you should not assume a table will be available on short notice, especially on weekends. Book at least one to two weeks ahead for a weekday visit; two to three weeks ahead for a weekend table is a sensible buffer. Wells draws visitors to the Cathedral year-round, so the tourist calendar adds pressure in summer and over holiday periods. For a relaxed first visit with maximum menu availability, a midweek lunch in spring or autumn gives you the leading of the seasonal produce and a less pressured room.

Dietary restrictions: Root's entire identity is vegetable-led, which means the menu is built around plant ingredients by default rather than by accommodation. If you have specific allergies beyond vegetarianism, contact the restaurant directly before booking, as menu details are not published in advance and change with the seasons.

For more options while you're in the city, see our full Wells restaurants guide, our full Wells bars guide, and our full Wells hotels guide. If you want a more casual daytime stop before or after, Maine Diner is worth knowing about.

For context on what Root's cooking sits alongside in the broader UK vegetable-led space, Opheem in Birmingham and Midsummer House in Cambridge represent the higher end of destination dining in comparable mid-sized UK cities. Internationally, Fu He Hui in Shanghai and Lamdre in Beijing show what fully committed vegetarian fine dining looks like at a different scale. Root operates below all of those in price and formality, but it is doing something genuinely coherent within its category.

For destination dining in the wider South West and beyond, Gidleigh Park in Chagford, The Fat Duck in Bray, L'Enclume in Cartmel, Moor Hall in Aughton, hide and fox in Saltwood, Hand and Flowers in Marlow, and Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Great Milton all operate in a different price tier and format, but they give useful reference points for what serious UK cooking looks like at different levels of ambition. Root is not trying to be any of them, and that is the right call.

Quick reference: Root Wells, 12 Sadler St, Wells BA5 2SE , vegetable-led small plates, ££, Michelin Bib Gourmand 2024 and 2025, Google 4.8/5 (186 reviews), easy to book with 1–3 weeks' notice recommended.