But the showstopper (which anyone who ate Michael’s food at Gidleigh Park will remember) is the chocolate orange dessert, in the uncannily lifelike form of an orange.Ĭream tea, the Devon way ( Listen to our podcast to hear our debate about whether cream or jam should go first, and let us know which you prefer on social media #olivesconedebate) A standout is the fillet of Darts Farm Red Ruby beef, perfectly balanced with a horseradish and shallot confit and silky celeriac purée. Its classic dishes attest to a chef at the top of his game: sumptuous but not over-elaborate, packed with multi-layered flavours. “There’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be than here.” We’d struggle to disagree, especially after enjoying his eight-course tasting menu in one of the hotel’s three dining rooms. “This is it,” he tells us, straightening a pot on the verandah as we watch the sunset sky turn raspberry-coulis-pink over the estuary. Michael is clearly enjoying his dual role of chef and hotelier. He’s even planted a vineyard (its first vintage should be on sale by about 2022). Michael has transformed a tired Georgian mansion into a triumph of New England-style design in palettes of taupe and dusky blues. Clotted-cream-hued Lympstone Manor by Michael Caines sits in a ringside position overlooking the estuary – proof that East Devon can scrub up as smart as Devon’s better known South Hams. When we visit, the great-value set lunch in the café includes a choice between Darts Farm Red Ruby beef and tarragon gnocchi, followed by crème brûlée.īut the Exe estuary is not just about ancient inns and street food from make-do-and-mend cafés. Sign up for a tasting with tapas in the cellars, or for a tour of the vineyard at nearby Clyst St George.įor booze with a longer history, stop at the Bridge Inn, largely untouched since the 18th century and famous for hosting the queen’s first outing to a pub, in 1998.Īt Topsham’s The Salutation Inn protégé Tom Williams-Hawkes produces top-notch food both for the coaching inn’s evening restaurant and its daytime Glass House café. Beginning in 1999 as a half-acre community-run plot, it now has 25 acres and produces some seriously good sparkling wines. “Charlotte may be called sweet but she has quite a bite,” the woman serving warns.īack on Topsham’s waterside, discover wood-fired pizza and wine in the cellars of Pebblebed winery. Try Sweet Charlotte, Country Cheeses’ own emmental-style cow’s milk cheese. Nip into Country Cheeses, one of a trio of cheese shops originating in Tavistock. Pigs – outdoor-reared in Powderham, across the estuary – also make an appearance in The Pig & Pallet’s pulled pork, served in spectacularly good cornbread baps baked in nearby Shaldon. The meat is reared a few metres away at Darts Farm, also home to an excellent farm shop. I tackle a beef burger made from Devon’s own Red Ruby breed. But their hot offerings became so popular that the stall quickly morphed into a rustic dining space.
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The café’s owners crafted it – out of discarded pallets, hence the name – as a stall from which to sell their nitrate-free Good Game charcuterie (bestsellers: rabbit salami and Devon fire chorizo). The Pig & Pallet café, inside a former sail loft on the quay at Topsham, claims to be a marriage of East Coast USA and West Country UK meat, rather than fish, is king. Quirky is what this little corner of Devon does well.
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There’s plenty else to detain foodies in pretty Topsham, whose high street of small independent shops (including the lovely Cooks Aweigh kitchen shop) feels a world apart from nearby chain-bound Exeter.