The Pig at Combe: country chic
GREAT ESCAPES
hungry traveller.
Elizabethan grandeur
Fresh Devon seafood, cooked to perfection
Calming and comfortable rooms
WHY IT’S GREAT The newest addition to the ‘rural chic’ collection of Pig hotels is a beautiful Elizabethan pile in East Devon’s Otter Valley, with a mile-long driveway and views over the Blackdown Hills. The bold decision to install a funky bar in the formerly fusty Great Hall, just as you enter the hotel, was a winner. There are other pleasant surprises including the preserved Georgian kitchen, now a private dining room, and the ‘derelict chic’ Folly with its glorious windows. There’s a small spa in the gardens. THE FOODIE BIT The ’25-mile menu’ has the kind of cooking a great, unpretentious home cook would come up with, served in the plantfilled dining room. Irresistible nibbles included mini scotch quail eggs with a mustard dressing. The chefs run riot with the veg, and ‘literally picked this morning’ items from the three large kitchen gardens, where there’s everything from cobnuts to plum trees, included fresh-as-a-daisy courgette soup and pretty chioggia beetroot with beenleigh blue risotto and watercress. Brill carpaccio was a zingy refresher and the Lyme Bay stone bass was perfectly cooked.