IMAGES: AMY VANN; JOSH CAMPBELL
EAT
A TASTE OF South Devon
The Bramble cocktail from Bar Buoy Right: A la carte dish at The Angel
THE ANGEL A waterfront Dartmouth spot run by former MasterChef: The Professionals finalist Elly Wentworth. She leads a young team delivering British cooking with international flavours, plus plenty of local fish, including roasted sea bass with turnip pickle, pak choi and smoked sea lettuce (pictured). Six- course tasting menu £95.
theangeldartmouth.co.uk
I say — and for an English red, no less. Steve nods. “Everyone associates English wine with sparkling, but there’s an amazing future for high-quality still wines.” I try both: the biscuity, zesty cuvée at
Lympstone’s lounge bar; the brambly fruit Triassic Pinot Noir at dinner, which pairs well with a gamey poached chicken from South Devon’s Creedy Carver farm. TV chef Michael Caines, Lympstone’s chef-owner, has sensibly decked out his Michelin-starred dining room with booth seating, so diners can relax into nine-course tasting menus featuring Lyme Bay crab, Newlyn cod and lamb grazed across the estuary at the Powderham Estate’s farm. Located close to the Dart Estuary in the
beautiful stone-built village of Stoke Gabriel, Sharpham Wine is another medal-winner for its reds. With around 40 years and 30 acres under its belt, accolades aren’t in short supply across a range that’s increasingly focused on low-intervention varieties. Set in a former dairy farm on Sandridge Barton Estate, it has two tasting rooms, the newer of which is set in a shingle-floor barn with sheepskins and a wood burner, overlooking a new plot of organic vines. Circa, once the darling of Exeter’s dining
scene, has moved out of the city and into the estate’s former milking shed, offering pairings with small plates showcasing house pickles and foraged fare. The single-estate Pinot Gris brings an earthy edge to a lunch of dessert-sweet milk
bread with lion’s mane mushroom, cep and caerphilly from Somerset’s Westcombe Dairy. I’m still mooning over that dish as I drive
45 minutes south to Salcombe. Here, where the Kingsbridge Estuary meets the Blue Flag beaches of the South Hams — strung in long, sandy arcs towards Plymouth and the Cornish border — it’s easy to get into the holiday spirit. Literally, at Devon Rum, where, in summer, you can dock at its shop, which backs onto the estuary, for cocktails and tastings of rums blended on site with Devon spring water, spices and raw spirits from Jamaica and Guyana. Opened in 2022, the artisan spirit-maker has a standard entrance on Island Street, just along from Salcombe Gin’s similar fisherman’s shed-like HQ. But mooring up for, say, a Devon Meadow, made with elderflower tonic, a sprig of rosemary, fresh lime juice and local honey-spiced rum adds a delightfully piratey edge to proceedings. Meanwhile, small-batch cocktails, built for
beachgoers and boaties, are on offer at Bar Buoy, over in Exmouth. “During lockdown, we started going to the beach to surf with our kids and took a shaker to make sundowner margaritas,” says Ria Ball, who founded the bar with her husband, Tim. “Friends started joining us, so we brought cocktails mixed at home in thermos flasks and, well, it all started from there.” Locals got a taste for the young couple’s ready-to-serve tipples and a business grew out of their garage, which expanding swiftly into a chic, nautical-themed
CAFE ODE Come for the ginger cake, stay for special-event supper clubs at this wood cabin-like hilltop cafe above the bay at Shaldon. Michel Roux- trained chef-owner Tim Bouget brings finesse to cafe dishes, like panko-breaded Brixham dayboat fish and mugs of coconut-rich curried green lentil dahl. Dishes £4-20.
odetruefood.com
THE BULL INN Hippie hilltop town Totnes has fast become a foodie hub. Since opening in 2019, The Bull Inn has led the charge with veg-centered, organic dishes like roast celeriac, skordalia, charred leeks, goat’s curd, chard and pumpkin seed picada sauce. Two courses around £40.
bullinntotnes.co.uk
VALLEY VIEW CAFÉ With views across the South Hams, Aune Valley Farm Shop is an idyll that’s grown from modest hut to sprawling cafe, deli and ‘milk shed’ for flavoured shakes. The Butcher’s Breakfast comes with farm sausages and bacon, the hog roast bap is made here with Aune’s belly pork, and cream teas star locally made preserves and Devonshire clotted cream. Mains around £9-11.
aunevalleymeat.co.uk
JUL/AUG 2024 55
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