HOW TO GET ABOUT
O’Connors Campers offers vintage VW Campers dating mainly from the Sixties and Seventies, ideal for exploring the lovely lanes of North Devon at a slower pace. It takes a little while to get the hang of driving these classic rides, but they are such a fun way to get around that it is more than worth it. Available for hire by the week, Monday to Friday, or for a long weekend.
Prices start from £425. Highlands, Old Road, High Street, Okehampton, 01837 659599, oconnorscampers.co.uk
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GOURMET TRAVELLER
NORTH DEVON
Travel information
GETTING THERE
First Great Western operates trains from London Paddington to Barnstaple (the furthest point accessible by train), via Exeter St David’s, with a journey time of about 4 hours. firstgreatwestern.co.uk
National Express runs a regular coach service that departs from London’s Victoria Coach Station. Barnstaple can be reached in about 5 hours 30 minutes. nationalexpress.com
RESOURCES
Visit Devon is the official tourist board, offering a wealth of information about the county, including what to see, where to stay, suggestions for eating and drinking and cycling routes and walks. visitdevon.co.uk A Taste of Devon is a useful resource for food lovers, covering the best farmers’ markets, artisan producers, shops and restaurants that you must try on your trip. atasteofdevon.co.uk
FURTHER READING
North Devon & Exmoor (Bradt Travel Guides, £7.99). This new book lifts the lid on secret spots in Devon, with out-of-the-way places, local characters and a guide to sustainable tourism.
Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson (Puffin Modern Classics, £6.99).
First published in 1927, this novel follows the life of Tarka amid his natural habitat of the Taw and Torridge rivers in North Devon.
‘Here, more than elsewhere, there is a strong sense of community, where people support each other and the local economy’
Opposite page, from top left: Stoodleigh Court breakfast;
Tiverton; Alex and Fiona of The Exmoor Beastro;
Appledore;
charcuterie at Broomhill Art Hotel;
NC @ EX34;
Lynmouth; Noel Corston; ribs at The Exmoor Beastro.
This page, from left:
its interior; lamb at Tarr Farm Inn;
Lynmouth; tapas at Broomhill
collection of contemporary art and sculpture in the South West.
It seems fitting that the award-winning kitchen of Terra Madre Restaurant has based itself on the philosophy of Slow Food, the Italian-born movement that celebrates food that is ‘good, clean and fair’. Sitting on the terrace overlooking the sculpture park, we enjoy a lunch of West Country tapas: delicate, home-cured salmon on a bed of salad leaves and flowers picked from the garden;
honey-glazed Devon goat’s cheese on a seasonal vegetable stew;
Lundy crab bisque; organic pork meatballs; and local cold-smoked trout and prawn croquetas. It’s delicious and informal food that is simple and sophisticated, like the region itself.
In Barnstaple, North Devon’s main town, we discover the Pannier Market, an impressive vaulted hall built in 1855 and so named because people from surrounding farms and smallholdings used to come here to sell their vegetables from wicker panniers. The Pannier Market is still in operation every day, but no longer only for food. Nearby Butchers Row once used to house more than 33 butchers selling meat from local farms. Today, just one – DA Gratton – remains. How did this small market town ever support so many butchers, I wonder? ‘Before supermarkets,’ I’m told, matter-of-factly.
Here, more than elsewhere, there is a strong sense of community where people support each other and the local economy. At Barton Farm Dairy, we meet Gary and Linda Wright, who work a dairy herd of 130 mainly Holstein and Jersey cattle.
‘There is a real interest in knowing where food comes from,’
says Gary, handing me a glass of raw milk virtually straight from the cow. ‘People here are turning away from the supermarkets.’ I take a deep swallow: rich, creamy milk that leaves you with a moustache is a forgotten taste that is just so good. Linda also uses this unpasteurised milk to produce wonderful soft cheeses such as creamy Kentisbury Down and a very mild, fresh Barton Blue.
Customers come direct to the dairy, helping themselves and leaving the money in an honesty box.
At the Old Rectory in nearby East Down, Victoria Cranfield uses the bounty from her rather wild garden and surrounding fields to produce an astonishing array of handmade jams, jellies, chutneys and pickles. A former lawyer, Victoria first came to East Down for holidays as a child. As we walk in the field, she points out not only
fruit, flowers and plants but also the incredible biodiversity of a pesticide-free microclimate. ‘Listen to the field,’ she instructs. ‘You can taste it in my jams, just as you can taste the smells.’
Indeed, her apple and rose petal conserve evokes the intense scent of roses; lemon and horseradish marmalade is pungent and sharp. Victoria makes marmalades known as ‘proper’ (Seville Orange, Pink Grapefruit) or ‘improper’ (Blood Orange and Espresso won gold at this year’s World Marmalade Festival). The Chocolate Splattered Marmalade is ‘my homage to Jackson Pollock’. My guess is that it is the ‘improper’ that interests Victoria more. In this overgrown paradise, she is having fun.
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Enjoyment seems to be a real motivation for people living and working in the region. Chef Noel Corston used to come to Croyde to surf. Learning to chef was a way to travel the world and nurture his passion. He met his wife while in Mexico and the couple returned to North Devon, opening The Courtyard restaurant in Woolacombe more than a decade ago. In 2012, he relaunched it as NC @ EX34, serving a seven-course tasting menu at dinner.
Noel’s aim is to express the unique flavour of North Devon’s protected Unesco Biosphere Reserve, working directly with farmers, fishermen, foragers and hunters to create food that is simply stunning. The menus may simply list the main ingredients, but the cooking is anything but spartan.
‘Red Ruby’, for example, consists of perfectly grilled Red Ruby feather steak, confit of shoulder, and lightly poached bone marrow with local vegetables: a parsnip purée, baby carrots and broccoli, and sharp homemade choucroute made from local cabbage. For Noel, the cooking and intensity of flavour of the vegetables is as important as the meat. ‘Apple’ is the thinnest caramelised apple tart with an ice cream churned from Devon Blue cheese. This is food that is at once totally local and really satisfying.
‘Do you still get time to go out and surf?’ I ask. ‘I don’t do too badly,’ the 36-year-old chef tells me. ‘We work incredibly hard for six months, then we close and go to Mexico. I am really trying to get the balance of work and family life right.’ Equilibrium seems to be the key here, in food as in life.
Our trusty red Camper also takes us to the roof of Exmoor, where we marvel at the most rugged cattle you will ever see, their shaggy coats offering protection from the harsh elements that buffet this high moorland, even in the summer months. Way up here they thrive on a diet of coarse grass, gorse and heather, yielding meat with fine marbling and terrific flavour. Exmoor lamb similarly matures in a harsh natural environment to result in a character that is deliciously robust and full. Just over the border in Somerset, we pause for lunch at the bustling Tarr Farm Riverside Inn &
Restaurant beside a popular beauty spot. Moorland lamb, chargrilled and pink, is served with local vegetables and washed down with a quenching pint of Exmoor Ale.
Coming off the moor, we head into mid-Devon to meet organic and free-range pig farmers Will Knowles and Jeannie Morrissey of Pork Heaven from Devon. An ex-commercial pilot, Will took over his father’s farm and only began to breed pigs about eight years ago.
To see Jeannie in the pens with the creatures is to know that this is clearly a labour of love. ‘Animals should be given the life they deserve,’ says Will, matter-of-factly. ‘I really do think ours enjoy about the best life that a pig can have. The way to give respect to the animal is to produce the best-tasting meat you can.’
The results speak for themselves: since Will and Jeannie began their business, they have won no end of praise, and awards for their sausages, burgers, chops and belly pork,
GOURMET TRAVELLER
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