Fountain Head Inn — Restaurant in East Devon

Historical building dating back centuries, although this particular incarnation looks Edwardian. The outside belies the traditional inside, with plain frontage, but a large open log fire and well worn flagstones produce a wonderful atmosphere for weary walkers, families and the odd football fan or two who wanted to watch the England games on a telly erected in the beer garden (this is not a sports bar). Outside seating is on solid wooden chairs, positioned around large tables, easily seating six people around each, and a quirk to their position is that a bridleway has right of access through the middle, suggesting an ancient route to this amazing pub. Beer is excellent, using Branscombe Brewery ales and ciders, which has produced small scale local ales since 1992. Wicked Weasel cider @4.7% is a true drinker's cider, albeit marginally strong, whose taste is a lovely reminder of licking cider ice lollies after school on hot summer days. The food looks gorgeous every time it appears, with exceptional taste and portion size, my only criticism being that it's priced slightly high. However, if you don't want to eat and snack instead there's a variety of crisps, pork scratchings, chocolate bars and nuts on offer. Payment can be made by cash or card. Altogether a fantastic little find, sitting nicely between campsites, airfield, beach and A3052. Parking can be difficult in a small, gradiented, rustic carpark, but I've seen cars parked in the field next door, although don't know if this is official. Give it a go as I'm sure you'll enjoy it...

The actual fountain head runs to the left of the property, which resembles the outflow from a rain gutter, with all the ambiance of standing at the mens urinals after 4 pints of Stowford press. We had been recommended the fountain head by 3 separate people. After seeing 4.6 starts and 200+ reviews, we had high hopes for food at this pub. The pork belly looked fantastic, as it arrived to the table, but on application of my fork, would have been more useful to re sole my left shoe after the hike along the coast to get there. The building itself was delapated with missing render and in need of a lick of paint, luckily the apple crumble would have worked nicely, instead of deciding serving it to your guests, why not fill in a couple of those cracks? The apple crumble was in edible. At no point were we asked how our meal was. After the plates were collected and a large amount of food was left we explained to the lady serving us our thoughts on the food, and we recieved no reply. The bill came, charged full price for in edible food, no apology. I understand things don't go to plan, chefs call in sick, new staff, supplier problems ect but no one seemed to care that we had a bad meal. If you're in the area and looking for a delicious meal I would certainly recommend you go to the fountain, head in the opposite direction and go to the...

I went to the Fountain Head beer festival yesterday. Lovely sunny day, sat outside enjoying the atmosphere with a few friends trying some of the different beers. I saw people eating, the food looked good so I thought that I'd get some sandwiches & a bowl of chips. I had to wait a while at the bar to order as although there was a separate bar outside for festival beer's only, there appeared to be just one girl serving in the main bar. A big event, lot's of people expected, maybe more staff required? At 2:30pm I asked if I could order some food? "Sorry we've stopped serving food, but the barbeque is just about to open" was the reply. The barbeque didn't appear to be open at 3pm so I left to spend my money in Tesco on the way home. What a shame that there was no food available at such an event for at least half an hour, I didn't have time to hang about waiting too long as I had to leave to meet...