The Chagford Inn

Unusually special cooking in a comfy Dartmoor inn makes this one for your hit-list, says Jo Rees

What’s the draw?

Astonishingly lovely dining-pub dishes served in a comfy and casual rural inn. Each day, visitors to the historic village of Chagford – and they come in droves in summer – must wander past this place with no inkling of the excellent eating to be found behind its terracotta facade.

Who’s cooking?

Chef Ollie Vernon and partner Jordan Ralph (front of house) had the nail-biting experience of taking on the pub just before lockdown. Happily, the couple managed to hang in there and, on opening, turned it into a very special spot.

Ollie learnt to cook at Exeter College and has worked at decent restaurants around the South West – although not the kind of big-name places you’d know. In fact, part of The Chagford Inn’s charm is that Ollie developed his skills off his own bat, without a high-profile chef mentor in sight. He was hungry to get his own place where he could source quality local ingredients and use his considerable culinary talents to craft them into top-tier dishes – and he’s pulled it off.

What to order?

There are nibbles such as homemade focaccia and home-cured bresaola to launch with, but they aren’t nearly as knockout as the generously sized starters, mains and puds, so we’d suggest sacrificing anything that results in less room for three fabulous courses.

On our visit, we went piscatorial for starters with oily chunks of cured salmon, cut with blood-orange slices, dotted with labneh and given crunch by a shard of crisp rye bread. Another dish of succulent Brixham scallops was presented just as elegantly: the seafood paired with cauliflower and herb oil, given salty bite by squares of panfried black pudding, and dressed with monk’s beard.

For mains we plumped for a dish whose ingredients read like classic peasant cooking – Dartmoor rabbit, cannellini beans, kale and pickled garlic – but which turned out to be polished restaurant fare. Expertly rolled saddle, a crisp croquette of dark meat and a rich rabbit reduction on a bed of beans (with fresh veg) was smart and balanced.

The best was yet to come, however. We put Ollie to the test by ordering the chocolate fondant – the classic downfall of many a TV cooking contestant – to which he responded insouciantly with a flawlessly molten pudding paired with homemade ice cream on chocolate soil and the bite of caramel popcorn and crisp honeycomb.

However, the pièce de résistance was the chouxbarb crumble: a crumble-topped puffy choux bun, split and filled with vanilla cream, pink forced rhubarb and vanilla ice cream. Exquisitely delicious and gloriously messy to eat, it screamed to be picked up and scoffed like a burger, cream splurging out of the sides as you attacked it face-on. Maybe next time …

Need to know

Three guestrooms in an adjacent building provide the opportunity to make it an overnighter.