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Food & Drink

Mouthwatering, Fresh & Local

The finest food from our local larder served in a unique and special atmosphere

 

We absolutely love cooking and serving delicious, exciting food which utilises the very best produce that Exmoor and North Devon offer.

We buy local produce – meat from local farms and fish from local day boats, all fresh of the highest quality and very low in food miles

Our dinner menu is small and fresh but changes every day to make sure that there is always something different every evening to tempt you.

As our restaurant is open exclusively to residents, there is quite a unique house party atmosphere here at The Old Rectory. Guests are invited to join us for predinner drinks and delicious canapes.

So that we can serve you the best food at the best value for money, we ask guests to preorder dinner. This ensures that we protect the environment by reducing waste and time costs and our small kitchen team can focus fully on preparing and executing your meal to the highest possible standard.

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Meet our Head Chef - Thomas Frost

Our talented executive chef, Thomas Frost, was raised locally and returned to the area a few years ago to start a family. He has a wealth of more than 20 years cooking experience gained at some of the best Michelin starred restaurants in London, Bristol and North Devon. He is now focused on firmly establishing himself on the North Devon food scene

Thomas has a distinctive modern style with a delicate touch of the unexpected. Taking influence from both classic and modern techniques he focuses on extracting full and exciting flavours from every ingredient on the plate

See Today’s Menus

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Our Suppliers

 

Meat
We buy our meat from MC Kelly, a local Devon butcher. They work closely with a select number of local farmers and well-established producers to supply the best quality local produce.

M.C. Kelly was founded in 1956 by Michael and Philippa Kelly when they started farming chicken and turkey and selling them to local butchers. Over the following years the company has diversified and grown, but they have never compromised on provenance and sustainability.

Fish
We buy our fish fresh from Nathan at the Devon and Cornwall Fish Company based at the Appledore Fish market. All their fish is sustainable, and much is from the Lundy Fishing Conservation using local dayboats from Bideford, Appledore and Ilfracombe to land their catch.  We try to ensure that the species we use are not from threatened or depleted fish stocks.

Vegetables
Supplied by Arthur David – from local farms through Devon and Cornwall

Eggs
Free range eggs from Clare at Rowley Farm, Blackmoor Gate

It goes without saying that cleanliness and hygiene are of the utmost importance and we have a 5 star award for food hygiene

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Wine

We love wine and are always keen to discover interesting new wines usually from smaller family run wineries around the World.  For example, we recently visited South America and added a number of fabulous previously unheard of wines and grape varieties to the list.

We like our guests to drink amazing wines at a fair and sensible price – allowing them to experiment and have fun, rather than offering a jaded and lazy selection of famous ‘names’ with a hefty price tag. We recently were awarded “Best Value across the Board” in the Champagne Taittinger Wine List Awards

We take great pride and put a lot of effort into finding the right wines for our award winning wine list and we really want you to reap the benefits of this policy – we don’t want to gather dusty bottles in the cellar!

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“The food. What can I say that doesn't sound like I am overstuffing my sentences with superlatives? Delicious. Every night the perfectly balanced local menu presented a new dilemma, offering melt-in-the-mouth pasta, perfectly seasoned soups, fresh fish cooked to pearly perfection, and the best frangipane tart you will ever have the pleasure to eat.”

CarriePBerkshire, Reading


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01598 763 368

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