Milton Abbot, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

“What you would expect of an upmarket country hotel”, particularly one that’s part of the mother-and-daughter-run Polizzi Collection, and profits from an “exquisite setting” overlooking the Tamar Valley. Although the menus and cooking “do not scale the heights, they are perfectly satisfying”, and it remains an “idyllic spot to enjoy a stroll before dinner” through the 100-acre grounds, or to enjoy an “afternoon tea of sophistication as it should be served” – the latter being a major attraction in its own right, much praised in numerous reports for its “lovely cakes”, and offering the perfect alibi to visit the “perfect Devon location”.

2022 Review: “Good all round” – the consistent ratings at this famous sporting hotel on the edge of Dartmoor have not been ruffled by its 2020 sale by the Fox-Edwards family that owned and ran it for 60 years to new custodians and former guests Simon Village & Arabella Monro. The 300-year-old former coaching inn has 20 miles of private riverbank and a fly-fishing school established in the 1930, and also caters for game shooting and deer-stalking parties. Meals are served in the dining room and bar, and there is a new deli providing picnic hampers.

“This outstanding hotel overlooking the Tamar Valley on the border of Devon and Cornwall is a joy and the restaurant is one of its selling points” – another being the country pile’s “magnificent views”. One reporter who last visited in its heyday (in the 1980s) found it a little more average these days, but other diners praise its “well presented and tasty cooking” at “fair prices”.