• 
• 

 

Saturday March 24, 2007 The Guardian

Exeter Festival Of South West England Food and Drink Exeter
If there's a foodies' equivalent to Glastonbury Festival then Exeter would be a good contender. The picturesque seven-acre site in Exeter has been expanded to include Rougemont Castle, which hosts the festival's live cookery theatre. This is the place to check out the likes of Michael Caines from nearby Gidleigh Park, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Tina Bricknell-Webb, the latter from the gem that is Percy's Hotel. The Ashburton Cookery School-sponsored Food Is Fun marquee boasts interactive cookery including a session called Tales From The Pig Farm. Northernhay Gardens hosts a colossal marquee showcasing south-west produce. Healthier options include organic veg from Linscombe Farm or Riverford Field Kitchen. A number of cafes and restaurants in the city have also joined forces to present the Food Trail. John Mitchell

GAMBLE ON A WINE BAR SET CHEF UP FOR THE GOOD LIFE 24 January 2007

Looking at her surrounded by pigs, chickens and geese, you would assume that Tina Bricknell-Webb was born to farmers. After all, the co-founder and award-winning chef for Percy's restaurant in Devon is passionate about country issues, such as buying local and cooking to the strengths of your regional produce. In fact, her path to Virginstow in deepest Devon was long and winding, and it started in London.

Tina's family were entrepreneurs. In the 1920s her grandfather started breeding and selling white mice. He made enough money to set up a credit betting business in London's Cheapside, near St Paul's Cathedral. His son, Tina's father, followed in his footsteps, opening a chain of betting shops.

"I started early," said Tina, recalling that at 14 years old she was drafted into learn the business. "I didn't know it then, but it was good preparation. The hustle and bustle that goes on in betting can be like a kitchen when things get manic.

"Tina was assigned Tony Bricknell-Webb as a mentor to learn her first trade: horses, handicaps, odds and betting. Over the years the pair fell in love and began to yearn for a different life together, one which allowed them some artistic flair.

In 1988 this came about in the form of a wine bar. Taking a huge loan, they opened Percy's in Harrow, North London.

Tina recalled: "We had several false starts with chefs who were hopeless cooks. I thought, I can do this. I can do this better." Tina taught herself to cook and was doing a hundred covers most days. Tony picked up the front-of-house duties, and as he described it, did a "speed course in how to charm" when things went wrong.

By the end of the first year the Bricknell- Webbs were thriving and had gained an enviable reputation throughout the area, both for the atmosphere of their restaurant and for Tina's freshly cooked food, unspoilt by over-salted rich sauces.

But Tina could not face the prospect of the London rat race without the vision of an occasional escape. "We needed someplace else to go where we could recharge our batteries," she said. "We wanted a hideaway for two days a week or so, where we could go with the dobermans, maybe even keep a couple of horses.

"Plus I wanted to grow fresh produce that I needed so badly for the wine bar.

"A long search culminated in the purchase of Coombeshead Farm, a 500-year-old rundown Devon longhouse near Okehampton, on the northern edge of Dartmoor. The 30 acres included barns and a huge dismantled glasshouse; it was just what Tony and Tina had dreamt of, and they secured it with a daring pre-auction bid. At first Tina and Tony used the farm as a refuge from city life. But gradually, they began to develop it as the site of their future business. They applied for planning permission for rooms and a restaurant at Coombeshead. Building works started and the money poured out of their bank account.

"It was a difficult time," said Tina. "It was vital for us to keep up the success of the wine bar. It was our only source of income. In 1995 we had to divide and conquer, with Tony overseeing the building works here and me running a busy kitchen 200 miles away.

"Although Tina's efforts were still earning regular accolades in London (including a Michelin Red M), the two mortgages and the travelling were a big strain. Tina was looking forward to moving out of London.

She said: "I thought, once we move down permanently, it will be a different pace. It will be no hardship for me to cook the odd breakfast and a few dinners a week. Little did I know.

"Eventually, the mellow farm became a business. Tony and Tina had had to borrow more from the bank to overhaul the rooms to the right standard, but Percy's soon gained popularity among couples seeking a rural getaway.

Crash-course farmers, Tina and Tony made excellent use of the land and learnt how to grow and breed most of their produce on their estate. In addition to vegetables, many of them quite unusual, they nurtured chickens, ducks, geese, pigs and sheep. There was even venison, supplied by a farmer who shot in nearby woodland.

"We made all the classic townie mistakes," laughed Tina. "Like putting a poly-tunnel on top of a windy hill, where it blew off. We got caught trying to shift a pig pulling both snout and tail at the same time - that gave the locals a few laughs

."Finding it difficult to attract properly qualified staff, Tina even grew her own chefs. She founded "The Academy of Regional Culinary Excellence", a training ground for budding chefs. The result is that not only is Percy's one of the top restaurants in England, but the kitchen is almost entirely staffed by local teenagers learning their trade.

Having finally disposed of Percy's in London, Tina no longer has to divide her attentions. She concentrates on Percy's Restaurant and Country Hotel and its garden, often priding herself in being able to say to her guests that every thing on their plates has been grown on the farm.It was a long haul, but Tina's dreams have come to fruition, as "Mr and Mrs Percy" (as they are known locally) live the good life among their thoroughbred horses and assorted animals.

Percy's has attracted many accolades over the years, but the one that Tina holds most dear is the review from Giles Coren, food critic for The Times, who wrote "Percy's is a very rare place indeed...I ate like I never thought I would".

He awarded Tina nine out of 10 and telephoned prior to the article being printed to say that it was the most endearing article that he had ever written about anyone. Tina said: "That made me smile. It also gave me the energy to drive Percy's even further."Percy's Country Hotel is on Coombeshead Estate in Virginstow, Devon. For more information call 01409 211236 or e-mail info@percys.co.uk

The Times/The Knowledge January 6th 2007
10 Top Spots for healthy grub
Percy's Country Hotel

Warm hospitality from the Bricknell-Webbs is as much a feature of this renovated 16th century longhouse as the deep commitment to grow & source organically. It means that guests are treated to seasonal goodies with an emphasis on herbs & clever spicing – seafood from the fish market at Looe, game, home-reared lamb & pork, homegrown eggs (from hens and geese), organic beef, duck & chickens from Exmoor, & organic homegrown vegetables, herbs & salads. Treat yourself to a night in one of the whirlpool-fitted guest rooms. It is totally smoke and child free – bag a spot on the teak patio breathe in the fresh air & drink in the peace & tranquillity. Lunch by prior arrangement.
www.squaremeal.co.uk

THE QUARTERLY
Autumn 2006 - Room For The Food

A stay at Percy's is a bit like entering Willie Wonka's chocolate factory since almost everything you come across in it's 130 acre Estate is edible. The only difference is that is's all nutritious organic produce.
For 10 years, husband and wife team Tony and Tina Bricknell-Webb have created a Garden of Eden in Devon. Organic herbs, leaves and vegetables are picked two hours before they arrive on the plate. Pigs and lambs roam free on their land and woodland areas have been created to attract wildlife and to furnish Percy's dishes.
Go for a walk around the Estate (accompanied by one of Tina and Tony's many friendly black labradors), and you'll be sure to pass a troop of ducks and geese. These provide the eggs for breakfast and for Tina's award-winning lemon tart.
Tina Bricknell-Webb is one of Devon's best female chefs. She prepares simple, delicious meals every evening for the guests and a wonderful aroma of fresh herbs wafts from the plates as they arrive at the table. The menu might include Wild Mushroom & Chicken Liver Parfait with Sage and Coriander Seed Toast, Oven Roast Loin of Home Reared Organic Pork with Mushroom, Sage & Juniper Glaze, and Cardamom and Lime Crème Brûlée.
The atmosphere at dinner is less formal than the Michelin Star experience, but that's fine with Tina and Tony, who have no desire to recreate it. "We don't want to follow a traditional structure, but let the quality of the ingredients speak for themselves," says Tina. And they certainly do, loud and clear.

olive magazine - from field to fork may 2006 at percy's hotel and restaurant in devon, every organic mouthful is grown, reared, cured or hatched just metres from your plate

Fancy a slice of The Good Life without the heavy digging and dungarees? Then Percy's is the place for you. In the village of Virginstow on the Devon-Cornwall border, the hotel and restaurant sits in a 130-acre working estate, Coombeshead, full of rare breed sheep and pigs, ducks, hens and thoroughbred horses. A row of green wellies lines the entrance ready for you to pull on and head straight out into the clean country air. If you want company, there's even a ready supply of black labradors tail-waggingly eager to give you the tour. Working up an appetitie 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 original north London restaurant they opened in the 80'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. Forget food miles, here the distance from field to fork is a matter of yards. You'll find woods full of floppy eared Large Black pigs rootling for whatever goodies they can find. Unsentimental diners can pet the friendly flock of Jacob sheep in the knowledge that they will be tucking into their organically reared relations at dinner - but at least there'll be no question mark hanging over the quality of life they enjoyed before their number was up.

Because that's the thing about Percy's: what you see is pretty much what you eat. Order Tina's wild mushroom and chicken liver parfait, for instance and your home-grown pate will arrive on a bed of deliciously peppery leaves such as Japanese mustard and Greek cress from the kitchen garden. In fact, it was salad that started the whole thing off back in the early 90's. 'All these unusual leaves were beginning to appear on menus ,' recalls Tony, 'but the farmer who supplied the top chefs wouldn't give us any. So we decided to grow our own down here at Coombeshead, which was our second home at the time. After a while we were growing all our vegetables and driving down in a pick-up truck once a week to take them back to London.'

\ In 1996, what had begun as a vegetable patch evolved into a second restaurant. After running the two in tandem for a couple of years, they eventually moved the whole operation southwest. Never having trained as a chef, Tina has taught herself over the years. The Bricknell-Webb's move into animal husbandry has been similarly ad hoc. 'One of the first things every naive suburbanite does when they move to the country is to keep goat's,' winces Tony, 'but oit's something you only do once. They used to get out all the time and eat everything. In the end, we gave one away and had the rest minced up. They made delicious spaghetti bolognese.'

Before they moved into the food world, Tony and Tina had spent 25 years running a chain of bookies. When their racehorse, Lady Chef, raised by the Bricknell-Webbs at Coombeshead, came in at Lingfield with odds of 10-1, Tony used a chunk of the winnings to treat Tina to some pedigree pigs. All went well, until the girls slipped their pen and trotted over to visit the boys. He crossed his fingers that the boars weren't mature but, three months later, a couple of guests returning from a stroll remarked how nice it was to see all the new piglets in the field. 'I raced out there and counted nearly 50,' says Tony. For Tina, a crash course in bacon curing and sausage making followed. With the help of one of the last practising curers in the region she picked up a range of skills she continues to put to good use. 'We use a small abattoir that's only 14 miles away and when the animals are slaughtered they have a particular time slot,' she explains. 'That means they are slaughtered straightaway. It's very important they're not stressed from a long journey or wait in the abattoir because that taints the meat.' 'We spend more time growing and sourcing stuff than we do mucking it around,' says Tony. 'If I eat rich food at night I wake up the next morning feeling one degree under. So our mission statement, if you like, is that we'll give you a lovely dining experience and you'll feel mornal the next day. We don't do heavy classical French cooking, just food, clean modern British.'

Dishes on the menu can inlcude rabbit taken from the estate, scallops from the 6 a.m. quayside auction at nearby Looe, organic beef from Exmoor as well as Percy's own deep-red, marbled lamb served with herbs and vegetables picked just a couple of hours ago. Self-sufficient in lamb and pork, Percy's chooses slow-growing breeds, which means the livestock enjoy happy free-ranging lives and, when they do end up on the table, the meat tasted as good as it possibly can. 'We don't slaughter new season lamb,' says Tony, 'it has a lovely texture but no flavour.' Instead, they wait until they're at least 10 months old. 'Our sheep have been fed on grass and our pigs are in woodland. That's why the flavour's good and the meat's dark, because they're eating naturally.'

You'll find the eggs here a bit of a revelation too. 'One of the reasons we bought the Black Rock chickens is because I started making lemon tarts.' explains Tina. 'I'd bought some eggs from hens that had obviously been fed fish meal - there was a fishy taste coming through.' With her own birds, she knows exactly what they're eating. The result? Big eggs with rich, dark yellow yolks - and a gold medal at the Organic food awards for her tart. Judge Raymond Blanc declared it the best tart au citron he'd ever eaten.

Are you ready to order? This week: Percy's Country Hotel & Restaurant (Filed: 13/05/2006) 'Boris is unstoppable, a force of nature'

Jan Moir makes friends at the Coombeshead Estate, Virginstow, Devon

Boris is unstoppable, a force of nature' - Jan Moir makes friends at the Coombeshead Estate, Virginstow, Devon
Boris is very naughty. In fact, he's worse than naughty. He's a randy old pig who keeps escaping from his electrified pen in search of any exciting sow action. He's unstoppable, a true force of nature! So far this year, Boris has been a father eight times over and Tina, the farmer's wife, says she's going to have to put a bigger charge on his electric fence, but she loves him really.

Bawdy Boris: a vital cog in the 'beautifully managed' estate
Sometimes she lies down in the sty with him and scratches his great big belly. Boris loves that, he really does, but what he likes even more is chasing after the chambermaids. He knows that somewhere on their person will be thick slices of Tina's home-made gingerbread with lemon icing, which are put in the bedrooms as a gift for guests.

Boris thinks that if he head-butts the girls, or maybe even charges and knocks them over, some of that gingerbread will be his. Having sampled it myself, I can see where he's coming from. It's so delicious! Forget the decanter of lukewarm sherry or the cheap chocolate on the pillow, Tina's fragrant, spicy gingerbread cake shows how a welcome gesture should be done.

Meanwhile, Boris is making a bid for freedom again, trundling down the lane at Percy's Country Hotel & Restaurant as the maids scream and scatter. No wonder, for he is the biggest pig I've ever seen, about the size of a van. ''He's lovely, really,'' says Tina, tempting him back to the sty with a bowl of feed before going off to water the lettuces and start preparing dinner. ''It's all in a day's work,'' she says, as her boots spark off the cobbled path that leads to the hotel kitchen.

Leaving the city and escaping to a rural retreat to grow your own socks, make chutney out of beans and marrow and cuddle pigs is a fantasy for most people, but not for Tony and Tina Bricknell-Webb, who are living the eco-dream.

''Some people say we're like The Good Life, others say we're Fanny and Johnny Craddock,'' says Tony, a bookmaker turned gentleman farmer who has learned some important agrarian lessons. ''You only keeps goats once,'' he says, "then never again. They're a nightmare.''

Just outside the restaurant's front door is a glorious herb garden
Sixteen years ago Tony and Tina sold their betting shops and wine bar in north London and headed west, where they now run an organic estate set deep in a lush fold of Devon. Here, amid 130 prime acres, they keep sheep, Large Black pigs, hens, ducks and geese, grow their own vegetables and breed racehorses on the side. Somehow, they also find the time to run their own country house hotel and restaurant, where guests are encouraged to don wellies and hike around the fields to meet all the animals, then come back to the dining room and eat them. Now that's what I call a countryside alliance.

Pre-dinner drinks are taken outside if the weather is good, or in a bar area with oak floors and doors hewn out of Douglas fir. Here, Tony brings plates of freshly-made canapés, which are simple and nicely done in a very English way; slices of hard-boiled egg - laid by their own hens - have yolks the colour of a blazing sunset and are laid with a few peppery leaves on some thin crispbreads. Other savoury bites are adorned with wafers of home-grown, delicious ham and curls of pungent salami.

Everything here is organic, even down to the jumpers Tony plans to have knitted from their own sheep wool, and the entire farm is Soil Association registered. This means that the food journey at Percy's, from field to table, is thrillingly short.

The dining room is simple to the point of bareness, with a handful of tables and a rustic, unpretentious air. The menu features four starter and main course selections, plus an optional cheese course and another quartet of desserts.

Chef Tina also keeps it simple, with starters such as Cornish scallops and squid served with a mustard and honey dressing or grilled goat's cheese alongside her own marrow, bean and onion chutney with pungent Indian spicing. Both our starters, a mushroom and chicken liver parfait and an avocado, bacon, thyme and butter-bean salad, come with a shower of glorious and unusual herbs and leaves, such as the peppery Greek cress, grown just outside the restaurant's front door.

CHECKING IN
Richard Eilers, The Observer Sunday April 9 2006

Imagine a final, unscreened episode of The Good Life ... Barbara catches Tom showing Margo his smallholding and chases them out of Surbiton. But where can the mismatched lovers hole up? What will satisfy Tom's earthy yearnings and Margo's sophisticated tastes?

I suggest Percy's Country Hotel & Restaurant. Set in a 130-acre estate, it 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.

The price: from £125pp per night, including breakfast and dinner.

We liked: the food, the food, the food.

We didn't like: Tina's description of her boar's sex life. Way too much detail.

The verdict: Tom and Margo live happily ever after.

PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK, AUTHOR, SCIENTIST & CREATOR OF THE GAIA THEORY, DECEMBER 2005 

Dear Tina & Tony, I have intended for quite some time now to write to tell you how much Sandy and I admire what you have done at Coombeshead. As you know the cause that most moves me is the wish to show how to live in a seemly way with the natural world of Gaia and for my part I have tried to do so through my books. What you have done is just as important.

We have watched you both build a truly 'organic' country house hotel where any one who comes to eat can see their food growing in the greenhouses, gardens and meadows in an environment that seamlessly fits in with the natural world and is a humane part of it. You have brought new life to the term organic, a word that otherwise has become discredited by marketing to become a shabby icon that endorses food imported by air from places thousands of miles away.

We wish you every success and will continue as always to recommend Percy's to our friends and to the distinguished persons that come to visit us.

SUNDAY INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE, NOVEMBER 27TH 2005 SYBIL KAPOOR

" As winter sets in, many urban cooks fantasise about escaping to some rural idyll, where they can grow all their own vegetables and live off the land. Visions of pulling your own leeks for a steaming bowl of home-made soup will naturally divert anyone standing in a bus queue but, in reality, how many of us know what is in season at any one time in Britain? Few would consider pak choy or the pretty Japanese variety of baby turnips on sale as typically British winter crops, yet both are now widely grown here

One woman who is keenly aware of what each season brings is Tina Bricknell-Webb. In 1990, she left London with her husband Tony to try to create their own organic Arcadia in the depths of rural Devon. In the grounds around their small Hotel they planted nut and fruit trees, vegetables, herbs and soft fruit, and began building up livestock to sustain their new life. At this time of year Tina is spoilt for choice when it comes to vegetables. Aside from the usual selection of root vegetables, she has horseradish, curly kale, leeks, spring onions and cabbages, as well as white-sprouting broccoli - which is destined to be the next fashionable supermarket vegetable.

Part of Tina's Arcadian vision is to cook dishes where all the ingredients have an affinity with one another. "It feels much more natural to eat lamb with produce that has been grown in the same area," she says. "The minerals that flavour the grass the lamb has eaten also flavour the carrots and rosemary you serve with it." Thus, her large black pigs can rootle through the end of the organic potato crop before being turned into tender roasts that might be accompanied by home-grown root vegetables roasted in pork fat. If her pork is roasted with fresh sage leaves, she adds a few sage stalks to her boiled potatoes, so that when they are mashed they echo the flavours in the meat.

A flexible approach to cooking is essential if you restrict yourself to seasonal home-grown produce. There are only so many soups, crisps, gratins, roasts and purées that you can make with parsnips yet, according to Tina, parsnips taste delicious baked like carrot cake and flavoured with mace."

THE OBSERVER TRAVEL SECTION, OCTOBER 30TH 2005 GEMMA BOWES

" Groundbreaking organic food, collected from the estate daily, is what sets Percy's apart. Chef Tina Bricknell-Webb and her husband are dedicated to using seasonal ingredients, and collect speciality salad leaves, herbs and vegetables from the garden each morning, along with Indian runner duck eggs for breakfast. Venison, game and fungi come from the woodland in autumn, pigs and lambs are kept on site, and three times a week the owners meet the Cornish fishing boats for skate, mullet and lobster. Eleven rooms, named after herbs and set away from the restaurant in a converted granary, have whirlpool baths, leather sofas and bespoke furnishings."

SATURDAY INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE, OCTOBER 22ND 2005 JENNI MUIR RANKED 17TH IN THE UK'S 50 BEST GOURMET RESTAURANTS.

" Many of the first rate ingredients used on Percy's menu come from the very estate on which it's based. Not just home grown veg and herbs, but eggs from Black Rock chickens and Indian Runner ducks, roe deer and rabbit, and fungi collected from the woods. Chef and co-owner Tina Bricknell-Webb is also committed to organic growing and sourcing, so any blow out here guarantees at least some special feeling of virtuosity. The building features two dining areas of complete contrast - one a funky conversion, the other epitomising country house tradition."

SATURDAY INDEPENDENT, SEPTEMBER 3RD 2005 CAROLINE STACEY

" Living the dream of running an organic country estate, the Bricknell-Webbs have created a pastoral idyll in the shape of their hotel and restaurant where chef Tina uses vegetables and salad straight from the garden and cooks their own-reared lamb and pork. The cooking's thrilling, fragrant with herbs like lavender (with garlic jus on the rump of lamb - their own of course), saffron and ginger perfuming the vegetables with monkfish (wild), rosemary ice cream with a lemon tart and crème brûlée flavoured with cardamom and lime cream. A pampering place to stay, unbothered by pesticides or little pests - it's adults only in the restaurant where dinner is £40 for three courses."

THE WESTERN MORNING NEWS, SEPTEMBER 3RD 2005 MARTIN HESP

" For the past year, Tina has added a traditional breed of large black pig (which makes excellent bacon and hams) to her extensive live larder and consequently she's been bitten by the meat curing bug. The Percy's terrine (or brawn to give it a local and more humble name) was a masterpiece of the genre, and the bean chutney accompanying it was a flavoursome and well-textured tour de force. I was also impressed by the delicious tiny courgettes and sensational rose beetroot.

Which is why I was somewhat perplexed when I found her sitting behind three plastic tubs of industrial pork cure. "Smell this," Mrs. Bricknell-Webb demanded, wafting one of the pots in my direction. I didn't want to because you could sniff the chemical pong from feet away, but Mrs. B-W is not a woman to be contradicted. After inhaling all the three salt mixtures, I was beginning to feel less than well - then I was instructed to put my nose into a fourth mixture. It's aroma was altogether different - a savoury mix filled with nuances of herbs and spices.

"That" said Mrs. B-W proudly, "is my own cure." Having subsequently tasted Percy's home cured bacon, I can testify that the ex-London chef has got the formula exactly right. It is not over salty - which all too many bacons are nowadays - and this leaves room for other more delicate flavours to come nosing through. "This is where the summer herbs - the fresh bay, the juniper, rosemary, thyme, sage, etc lend the brines an enormous amount of flavour.

Like the curers of old, Mrs. Bricknell-Webb is keeping the fine details of her recipes secret, but she says: "It's something you adjust to your own taste - you add nutmeg, coriander, whatever. I have a real drive to learn this subject and I want to produce the best bacon in the country."

THE OBSERVER FOOD MONTHLY, FEBRUARY 13TH 2005 NIGEL SLATER

" 'I went for a walk yesterday with our dog and picked up a rabbit, came back, skinned it, and made a ravioli for our customers.' Welcome to an organic lunch at Percy's.

And who needs roast beef when what arrives on your plate will consist of Percy's freshest organic vegetables and salad plucked from their vegetable garden, seasoned with their own fresh herbs, served with organic meat reared on their farm, perhaps sprinkled with a few cobnuts or mushrooms picked from the floor of Percy's woodland? Lunch can often turn into a day out. There are 130 acres of stunning cascading hills to explore, you can visit the pigs, help with the bottle-feeding during the lambing season, or just sit at the table watching the chickens and the grazing horses. Tina serves only the most exceptional quality of ingredients and it's totally organic. The style is modern British and the aim is to treat each ingredient with integrity, so as not to disguise their flavour."

THE SATURDAY TIMES MAGAZINE, JANUARY 29TH 2005 GILES COREN

" With it's own organic farm providing most of the meat and veg (kill for the goose eggs laid that morning), Percy's is not only one of the best but one of the "healthiest" restaurants I've ever been to."

THE WHICH? HOTEL GUIDE 2005 PATRICIA YATES

" Superb food and rooms at this flagship for honest, straightforward hospitality.

Many moons ago Tina and Tony Bricknell-Webb did what many other urban dwellers dream of and sank their hopes (and money) into a run-down farm in deepest Devon. It wasn't always an easy transition - their previously docile Doberman displayed murderous tendencies and killed several sheep, while money disappeared faster than swallows in September. But now they have things pretty well set up. The smart restaurant is a showcase for Tina's stylish yet uncomplicated cooking. Lamb is homegrown, as are the eggs (from hens and geese), breads are home-made and fish bought from Looe."

Our inspection meal of warm scallops followed by steamed turbot with asparagus was faultless, Tony providing just the right amount of welcome and conversation. Across the courtyard the rooms match that approach, with their simple colours and top-quality furnishings. Sheets and pillows are excellent, there is a good tea tray and DVD player, and a power shower in the bathroom."

SATURDAY INDEPENDENT, NOVEMBER 2004 CLARE DWYER HOGG "THE 50 BEST FESTIVE FOOD HAMPERS"

" Percy's is last year's Organic Restaurant of the Year and it's Organic Hamper is a treat. It includes gluten-free sausages, ginger and dark chocolate biscuits, a pumpkin cake and their own delicious chutney. They've also included their lemon tart (eight portions) which won gold at the Organic Food Awards. Yum ! All 12 items in the hamper can be made gluten or wheat free, so no one has to miss out."

SUNDAY TIMES TRAVEL, NOVEMBER 2004 SUSAN d'ARCY

" The hotel has amazing views over Bodmin and Dartmoor, rows of borrowable green wellies in the hallway, and four frisky black labradors who can't wait to take you for a bracing walk. The buzz word in catering is provenance: smart London restaurants now name their suppliers on their menus. Percy's goes one step further: it is it's supplier. Vegetables are picked from it's organic gardens; chemical-free sheep and pigs are reared on it's 130 acre Estate; and game, fungi and fruits are scavenged from its woodlands as the seasons dictate. Tony even struggles out of bed at 4am most mornings to buy turbot, squid and lobster from Cornish day boats on the harbour.

You can taste the difference. The lamb in rosemary jus and pan fried monkfish with ginger and saffron sauce are impeccable. Start with Tina's chicken parfait and finish with her tingling lemon tart (both won gold medals at the Organic Food Awards), and you will retire to bed happy."

DELICIOUS MAGAZINE, NOVEMBER 2004 CORALIE DORMAN

" Percy's, a restored 16th century Devon longhouse, is slap bang in the middle of the breathtaking Coombeshead Estate, overlooking Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor. Chef Tina Bricknell-Webb's food is simple, fresh and wonderful - and is also available through mail order. Try the most lemony lemon tart in the world, from £15; the divine fish pie with half the sea in it, £45; and the courgette, beetroot and goats cheese quiche, £15."

MAIL ON SUNDAY YOU MAGAZINE, AUGUST 29TH 2004 ANGELA MASON

" For the perfect restorative organic break...Percy's Country Hotel & Restaurant of Virginstow, Devon, winner of several organic food awards (among many others, for small hotel, stylish/chic hotel, most excellent restaurant - they must have rum out of wall space for their certificates). In smoke-, child- and stress free surroundings, enjoy food sourced locally and grown organically on their own estate. Tina Bricknell-Webb's cooking - including her famous lemon or chocolate tarts, which can be made gluten free - is also available via the organic online store at www.percys.co.uk "

THE EVENING STANDARD, AUGUST 6TH 2004 CAROLINE SYLGE

" Scrumptious, revitalising food is served in tranquil surroundings. Almost everything on Tina Bricknell-Webb's menu is organic and reared on the estate, from eggs in lavender crème brûlée to the roast loin of lamb. The fish - from lobster to Dover Sole - are brought fresh from Looe fish market each morning. Simply exceptional."

SUNDAY TIMES TRAVEL MAGAZINE, AUGUST 2004 JANE KNIGHT (INTERVIEWING TWO MICHELIN STARRED DEVON CHEF MICHAEL CAINES)

" This is a place I'd definitely go out of my way to get to. It specialises in organic food. They have "home-grown" animals - sheep and geese laying eggs, and also grow their own herbs and salad leaves. Tina's a good chef, there's a lively bar and a nice space with a cottagey feel. There's also an excellent wine list."

SATURDAY TELEGRAPH MAGAZINE, JULY 31ST 2004 CAROLYN HART

" Stay at Percy's - the luxury Devon hotel with a smoke, child and stress free policy - and eat their local organically grown food (much of it produced on the Percy estate) in situ, or order the produce via email and have it sent directly to your door. Either option is highly recommended, but whichever you take, remember to have at least one go at the chocolate, prune, hazelnut & Armagnac tart, which could challenge the River Cafe's legendary chocolate nemesis as number one UK pudding."

THE WESTERN DAILY PRESS, JULY 29TH 2004 RICHARD PITMAN

" When I saw that Devon's trainer Rod Millman's Goodwood runners this week included a filly called Lady Chef, running in the colours of Percy's Country Hotel & Restaurant, I thought there was a tale to tell and how right I was."

SUNDAY TIMES STYLE MAGAZINE, MAY 30TH 2004 LYDIA SLATER

" Get yourself a Ritz-worthy tea at a fraction of the cost - by post. Percy's Country Hotel & Restaurant in Virginstow, Devon, has a divine, award winning range of organic mail-order scrumptiousness, from home reared lamb to toffee sauce. The sour lemon tart looked a little battered on arrival, but was, quite simply, the best I've ever tasted (£15), while the light-as-air meringues (£3 per half dozen) arrived miraculously intact."

THE SATURDAY INDEPENDENT, MARCH 20TH 2004 CAROLINE STACEY

" Ordering food from an organic hotel in Virginstow, Devon, is an extravagance we'd recommend. Percy's is an enterprising pastoral idyll, where animals graze, vegetables grow, and guests stay and dine. Produce includes chutneys, meat, an award winning lemon tart, seed breads and this organic chocolate, hazelnut, prune & Armagnac tart, one of the most sumptuous we've ever tried. The delivery charge goes down the more you order."

THE GUARDIAN, MARCH 27TH 2004 JOHN MITCHELL

" Everything tastes of something at Percy's. This includes the cumin flavoured bread and the peppery salad leaves forming a bed for the seared scallops. Pan fried monkfish oozes both taste and texture and its stir fried vegetables with ginger don't just accompany it, they form an essential component of the dish. They even deliver the lambs themselves, and not many restaurants can say that."

THE WHICH? HOTEL GUIDE 2003. PATRICIA YATES

" Aperitifs and canapés are served in the neighbouring bar and mezzanine lounge, which are as slick and sophisticated as the dishes. Across the gravel drive, the cool, chic bedrooms occupy what was a granary, and have light, ash furniture and power showers."

TRADE SECRETS. WAITROSE FOOD ILLUSTRATED, JULY 2002

"The challenge
"Can you help? My husband and I recently returned from a holiday in Provence, where we enjoyed lavender ice cream. My husband thinks it quite divine, tasting exactly as it smells. Anyone not having tasted this culinary delight has certainly missed out. Your help in re-creating this delicacy would be very much appreciated."

Janet Rance, by e-mail

The solution
WFI turned to Tina Bricknell-Webb, chef at Percy's Country Hotel and Restaurant in Virginstow, Devon. Tina uses all kinds of home-grown produce in her cooking, not least fresh herbs, and lavender ice cream is a particular success story. "Its fragrance just encapsulates summer," says Tina. "This ice cream is particulary good with raspberries - perhaps in a meringue nest with some crème fraîche, raspberry coulis and toasted nuts." Tina's advice is to use only young shoots of lavender, picked just before the flowers open. Alternatively, use 4 tbsp dried lavender flowers. The glycerine, which is available from pharmacies, is optional - it simply makes the ice cream a little easier to scoop.

RAC ANNUAL HOTEL INSPECTION, JUNE 2002 DAVID SIMS

" The cooking of Tina Bricknell-Webb is unquestionably one of, if not the main strength of Percy's and tonights experience did not disapoint. In many ways it has moved forward and encapsulates the promotion of first class produce and raw ingredients, with a high level of technical skill resulting in vibrant, often stunning dishes in terms of excellent marriages of flavours and textures. Organic produce at its best with commendable cooking."

SATURDAY TIMES MAGAZINE, APRIL 2002 GILES COREN

" The duo of John Dory and sea bass with a saffron glaze was excellent. It was served with a julienne of vegetables which contained chunky strips of ginger, treated as a vegetable not a spice... For pudding, strawberry meringue with cardamom ice-cream and clotted cream was delicious, and a delicate lemon tart was made on exceptional pastry. Percy's is a very rare place indeed"

WAITROSE FOOD ILLUSTRATED, APRIL 2002 NIKKI SMITH

" While away a night or two in this lush Devon hideaway and you'll feel not just utterly relaxed, but also inspired. Walk the estate with the hotel's boisterous black labradors, rub noses with the Bricknell-Webb's beautiful horses, or wander in the herb and vegetable garden from whence your next meal will be plucked."

THE GOOD FOOD GUIDE 2002 JIM AINSWORTH

" In many ways Percy's is a model of it's kind. Dedicated to using some of it's own organic materials, so that the food reflects seasonal gluts and shortfalls, it maintains a degree of contact with the land that is as rare as it is welcome. The garden's role and a direct daily link with the fish auctions at Looe are immediately apparent in an impressive home-cured mackerel salad, the gravlax-style fish shaved in thin slices over a pile of perky, peppery leaves"

SUNDAY OBSERVER TRAVEL SECTION, MARCH 2002 DEE O'CONNELL

" You come back from your walk around the 130 acre estate, ruddy cheeked and peckish, to find that two slices of rich fruit cake have magically appeared in your room. They go down perfectly as you reflect on your afternoon - but then your limbs begin to gently ache. You're not very sore, but you could do with a bath. Maybe one with a control panel that turns on jets of water so its practically a Jacuzzi. Just like, in fact the one you find in your bathroom."

SATURDAY TELEGRAPH TRAVEL SECTION PADDY BURT

" The food's pure delight. Bread's just made. The baby Dover sole is as fresh as it should be. Salad leaves taste as if they were growing an hour ago. It's another of those want-to-come-back places. Am I getting soft or are hotels getting better? "

PLACES TO EAT AND BUY ORGANIC GREENS by JIM AINSWORTH THE OBSERVER

" Percy's currently cultivate a mere one and a half acres as a kitchen garden which is en route to becoming totally organic. Everything in this garden yields useful, usable ingredients for the restaurant menu and the customers declare that Percys' vegetables are far better than most."

AUTHOR & SCIENTIST PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK

" Who would want to live in the depths of rural West Devon with no neighbours and only the wild life in sight? We do because we enjoy its peace and tranquility, but when we want to celebrate, there is Percy's only two miles away. As our friends tell us, Sandy and I have found our little bit of paradise."

 

• Welcome
• The Restaurant
• The Estate
• Sample Menu
• Booking & Tariffs
• Find Us

COOMBESHEAD ESTATE, VIRGINSTOW, DEVON, EX21 5EA
TEL+44(01409)-211236 - FAX+44(01409)-211460 - E-MAIL info@percys.co.uk - WEB www.percys.co.uk
web site: first choice pcs