Woods

Smartly informal place with exceptional wines and enjoyable food

The wine list in this gently upmarket place is quite fantastic. You can order any of the 400 or so that they keep on this list by the glass and the landlord also has an unlisted collection of about 500 well aged new world wines which he will happily chat about. It's comfortably relaxed with a good mix of drinkers and diners and very Exmoor - plenty of good sporting prints on the salmon pink walls, some antlers, other hunting trophies and stuffed birds and a couple of salmon rods. There are bare boards on the left by the bar counter, which has well kept Bays Best, Devon Dumpling and Gold, and St Austell Dartmoor Best, HSD, and Proper Job tapped from the cask, a farm cider, many sherries, and some unusual spirits; attentive, helpful staff, and daily papers to read. Its tables partly separated by stable-style timbering and masonry dividers, the bit on the right is carpeted and has a woodburning stove in the big fireplace set into its end wall, which has varnished plank panelling; maybe unobjectionable piped music. Big windows keep you in touch with what's going on out in the quiet town centre (or you can sit out on the pavement at a couple of metal tables). A small suntrap back courtyard has a few picnic-sets.

Using their own-bred pigs, the excellent bar food includes filled baguettes, ploughman's, soup, venison pâté with red onion jam, port wine syrup and pickled mushrooms, a plate of cured meats with pork rillettes and home-made piccalilli and beer mustard dressing, linguine with wild mushroom cream sauce and truffle oil, slow-roast pork belly, fine slices of tenderloin and fried liver on smoked black pudding with apple compote and port wine juices, confit leg of organic chicken with jerusalem artichoke purée, peas and pancetta and poultry sauce, grilled fillet of cornish gilthead sea bream on saffron couscous with ratatouille and shellfish bisque, and puddings such as iced strawberry and white chocolate parfait with white chocolate mousse and confit pineapple with rum and raisin ice-cream.