The Foodie Bugle Grows in Somerset

Silvana de Soissons’ tiny empire is growing: her online journal–The Foodie Bugle–just became a charming shop and tearoom on a Somerset high street.

In 2001, Italian-born, England-based Silvana started The Foodie Bugle–an online journal to celebrate her love of “clean, fair, delicious, seasonal food grown and made with love and care.” (We profiled the publication in The Foodie Bugle: A Brash Upstart is Already a Must-Read.) The Foodie Bugle soon added a print edition, then an online shop, and then a lecture series to help fellow small businesses grow.

And grow Silvana does: in December, she opened The Foodie Bugle brick-and-mortar in Bath in England’s southwest. From eight in the morning (when she’s serving tea) until eight at night (when she’s serving wine), her shop supplies locals with fresh groceries, flowers, kitchenware, and garden tools.

Follow Silvana on Instagram and you’ll learn it’s hard work but true love. Up next: the Foodie Bugle Supper Club (the first session was held this week), and Silvana and her husband John-Paul are soon to launch their own line of jams and preserves. For more, visit The Foodie Bugle Journal and Online Shop.

Photography courtesy of Jason Ingram.

Above: By seven in the morning, Silvana is already setting up shop and prepping ingredients for the day’s tearoom menu.

Above: At The Foodie Bugle, customers stop for tea and croissants on their way into work, then charcuterie and wines by the glass on their journeys home.

Above: Silvana’s first morning task is to set out the day’s bread from the nearby Thoughtful Bakery.

Above: The Foodie Bugle window display changes daily. On this frigid January morning, the produce got a rare respite indoors.

Above: Locally grown red chard for sale.

Above: Microgreens from the winter garden.

Above: The Foodie Bugle aims to keep prices low, even for highest-quality goods: these pink-and-white January tulips are £7 a bunch.

Above: A little table by the window for coffee-and-cake breaks. Silvana also sets a table outdoors for “intrepid customers who enjoy Arctic coffee-drinking conditions.”

Above: The Foodie Bugle offers a variety of British cheeses and crackers on its daily tearoom menu.

Above: For a rapidly growing business, The Foodie Bugle pays generous attention to details. Silvana had stamps hand made in Dorset for making shop tags and price labels.

Above: A narrow hallway at the shop entrance offers winter squashes for sale and decoration.

Above: The Foodie Bugle staff sport traditional English grocers’ coats and aprons.

While in England, see:

• Shopper’s Diary: That Flower Shop in Shoreditch
• Garden Visit: Great Dixter
• Hotel Visit: Rent a Wing of Wiveton Hall in Norfolk
• Summer Escape: A Seaside Rental in Cornwall