Grab a pizza this fabulous Italian inspiration

Restaurant Review

By John Clements, chef at Bridport’s Olive Tree

Parlour Cafe

Burton Bradstock

The Italian-inspired Parlour Cafe and Restaurant near Burton Bradstock sits smack bang in the middle of a working farm: UK Agri-Tourism for real. A campsite, a microbrewery, a live music venue and a racing car workshop too, I think. In short, everything that would make Jeremy Clarkson green with envy. Gotta be worth a visit then.

One of my favourite peeps keeps banging on about the

RURAL NIRVANA: The pizza and, right, the antpasti at the Parlour Cafe pizza here. Now pizza is tricky… the allure being the cheapness and simplicity of the ingredients… flour, water, yeast, tomato, cheese. BUT cooking a decent pizza is very, very hard. The crunch and the chew. Not many can pull if off.

Booking? Smooth as silk. By phone and no credit card needed. Joy. We arrived for lunch and were shown to our table in the main restaurant in front of the open kitchen. We could have chosen to sit al fresco or in the outdoor covered patio. We ordered antipasti to share. A huge plate of Italian cheese and salamis arrived, absolutely excellent. No one is going to leave the farm hungry. Menu is very Italian and reassuringly compact. Other starters included wild bass carpaccio, spiced pork belly in milk and burrata with salad. Mains were margarita and napoletana pizza straight out of the huge red pizza oven and they were both stunning. Crunchy and chewy and too big to finish. Other mains were aubergine parmigiana, spaghetti with red mullet, roast leg of Dorset lamb, turbot and confit duck. I think I spied an indoor charcoal barbecue to grill meat and fish as well. Some nice kitchen kit... Service is very laid back and informal as is the music and overall vibe. You must go there for a piece of rural Dorset Nirvana. Take that Jeremy ‘Mr fancy-pants’ Clarkson.