External Reviews

• The Observer, UK: Set in a 130-acre estate, Percy's Estate has impeccable organic credentials (certified with the Soil Association) but there is a touch of urban chic about the accommodation. It also has cute appeal. Black labradors wait in the car park to escort you on a tour of their domain, introducing you to lambs and piglets (morphing in my mind into sausages on legs in my pre-dinner hunger) and pretending to be interested in retrieving the sticks you throw.

  All of these characters are merely the supporting cast to Tina Bricknell-Webb's food, modern English dishes made using produce from the estate and garnering a string of awards (including one from Observer Food Monthly). The starters (pork and chicken terrine with sweet marjoram, wild mushroom and chicken liver parfait, bacon, avocado, butter bean and thyme salad) are presented on dramatic sculptures crafted from the freshest and most perfect green leaves. Those lambs and piglets make their grand entrance in the main course (braised lamb shank, pork escalope with sage crumb and a juniper jus). The lemon tart with rosemary ice cream is a tongue-tingling finale.

  The rooms, in a former granary, are simply furnished but welcoming, with fresh flowers and Gilchrist & Soames toiletries. No plastic-wrapped biscuits here, but yummy carrot cake and lavender shortbread.

  The hotel is on the edge of Dartmoor, an ideal base for long walks. The surfing resort of Bude is a 30-minute drive, as is the dramatic National Trust beach at Sandymouth Bay. We walked from one to the other along the clifftop path, fuelled by a breakfast of herby sausages, home-cured bacon and eggs with wonderful golden yolks." Richard Eilers, April 2006

  20 UK FOODIE WEEKENDS. OLIVE. MAY 2007

  Percy's This rural hotel offers organic food and field-to-fork dining at its best Fancy a slice of The Good Life without the heavy digging and dungarees? At Virginstow on the Devon-Cornwall border, Percy's hotel and restaurant sits in a 130-acre working estate, full of rare breed sheep, ducks, hens and horses. Working up an appetite is advised because as the sun sinks over Dartmoor, you'll be sitting down to four healthily sized courses of food sourced from the land around you. Named after the London restaurant they opened in the 1980's, Percy's belongs to Tony and Tina Bricknell-Webb, a couple who combine commercial nous with the grow-your-own commitment of Tom and Barbara. At Percy's, it's a case of what you see is pretty much what you eat. 'We don't do heavy, classical French cooking, just good, clean, modern British,' says Tony. Dishes can include rabbit from the estate, scallops from nearby Looe, organic beef from Cornwall, as well as Percy's deep-red, marbled lamb served with freshly picked herbs and vegetables. With sheep fed on grass and pigs that roam in woodland, Percy's hens are no exception. Their eggs have rich, dark yellow yolks, which helped Tina win a gold medal at the Organic Food Awards for her tarte au citron. Raymond Blanc declared it was the best he had ever eaten.