Plantation House

From bread to truffles, they cook as much as possible on site in this little hotel in the rolling South Hams countryside between wild Dartmoor and the sandy beaches of Bigbury Bay. As well as raving over the delicious food, readers give the thumbs up to the rooms in the former Georgian rectory; even a 'snug room had a good bed'. All bedrooms come with much-appreciated extras: home-made cake and biscuits, ground coffee and a cafetière, a selection of drinks and mineral water, fresh fruit, flowers and White Company toiletries. There are even hot-water bottles. Bathrooms have both a shower and a bath as well as underfloor heating. Meals are the star of the show, with owner Richard Hendey and chef John Raines using home-grown and wild ingredients, plus locally caught fish, to create dishes such as brill with chive potato cake, lime hollandaise, ginger courgettes and asparagus. An 'excellent breakfast' includes ‘special yogurt, very tasty home-made bread’, locally pressed organic apple juice, nuts, seeds and honey with figs and Hunza apricots, smoked haddock, or four-minute-ten-second boiled egg with asparagus and toast soldiers.