Coombeshead Farm — Restaurant in England

We stayed here for 2 nights & it was magical from start to finish. They warn you not to trust the sat nav directions; I can vouch for this unless you want to drive down loads of country lanes, wide enough for just one car & zero passing places! So, please use the directions given on their website, unlike us! On arrival, you are greeted by the friendly staff & shown to your room. We stayed in one of the new rooms, a converted grain store. Lovely huge bathroom & roll top bath plus a walk-in rainforest shower. Comfy but pretty firm super-kingsize bed with quality bedding. They even provide an umbrella & 2 walking poles for anyone who needs such things. NB This is an idyllic rural retreat & there was no TV in our room (presume this is the same throughout.) The guest WIFi is free but can be sluggish if using more than one device. There is a honesty bar in the main farmhouse with a large selection of home-made gins including honeysuckle & Earl Grey. You are free to roam around the farm, seeing the animals & beautiful trees. The ducks & pigs were especially friendly. Your stay includes breakfast. You get home-made yoghurt, fruits, hand-churned Guernsey butter; sublime toasted maltloaf; honey made from the resident bees; home-made jam & fresh juices plus tea & coffee. The hot dishes will again be centred around the farm's produce. We had hogs pudding with home-made tomato sauce then creamed leeks & bacon topped with poached eggs. All served with the phenomenal sour dough bread , freshly made by their bakers each morning. If you want to eat dinner there you have 2 options. Firstly the tasting menu (they also offer a vegetarian version) which costs £80 each not including any drinks, other than table water. If staying more than one night, you probably won't want the same tasting menu again - we opted for a 2 course lighter dinner for £35. Please see my attached photos for the dishes we enjoyed. Everything was so flavoursome & Chef du Patron Tom & his staff were very friendly & happy to explain all ingredients used in the dishes. Anyone with food allergies will be catered for, provided that sufficient advance warning has been given. There is an on-site farm shop where you can buy farm / bakery produce plus items such as ceramic bowls & blankets from other local retailers. They also have an outside seating area & you can have light bites & drinks. All in all, a tranquil, comfy haven for food & animal lovers. Can't wait to return. July 2022 update - we went back for a lunch event & then stayed in Room 7 opposite the bakery. This is slightly bigger than our previous Room 6 & the huge, deep stand-alone cast iron bath was great. It also had a great rain shower / wall mounted shower spray. Food was as lovely as before as were the staff. Nov 2023 update The cafe is currently not open & the breakfast is now a self-service buffet style. The latter still offers lovely home made pastries (sweet & savoury,) jams, muesli, bread etc plus ham & cheeses. If no-one is manning the shop, then there are honesty sheets upon which you write your taken items & either add them to your room bill / pay in...

On the second day after my arrival I said to my friends: if you want to give me a great gift, allow me to work here on the farm for 3 months, for free, just to see and learn how they live and work with, for and from nature! Work in and for the nature!

But as a guest: feel in paradise!

The winding road finally leads us to the farm / hotel. A young, easy-going gentleman comes up to us and kindly asks if we would like to check in. He leads us to the main house, where he first introduces us to the lower floor.

Here we find a large, cosy living room with a fireplace, a library with a bar full of local curiosities, a games room with a large table and finally a kitchen where we can brew ourselves some tea or coffee.

Then the rooms ... just perfectly cosy and elegant all in one. Technically well equipped but even more important are the many small details to discover.

The view of the green through the windows and the music of the birds in the morning let yourself go smooth.

A first walk around the farm, the surrounding countryside and the garden reveals an overwhelming array of greenery and wildlife. I think the city gardener would have a heart attack when he sees this perceived chaos in the garden beds, but a closer look reveals an extraordinarily modern, nature-orientated concept and thus an incredibly rich result of synergies. In the deep grass, lively chickens poke their heads out curiously and you can hear a contented grunt from the forest. I almost had to laugh when I discovered the pigs digging for roots with their permanent curl-like bristles between the trees. Old, very old oaks and modern solar cell fields provide a respectful contrast.

But it was the dinner in the evening, including the English wine, that made us realise the true richness of this place. A variety that you could only guess at on the tour the day before, and this modern and creatively realised. I can't go into all the details that we enjoyed ... you just have to experience it for yourself. A kitchen, on the one hand casual and on the other hand the best and most sophisticated for a long time. Talking to a chef in the garden the next day taught me another lesson ...they know their job!

By the way: breakfast and bread ...the good things just keep on coming.

As I said, I would love to be an...

Conceived in 2016 by ex- @pittcueco BBQ hero @tom_m_adams , @coombesheadfarm is the definition of a farm-to-table agro-Turismo experience. Set on 66 acres of fertile Cornish land, everything served here at the farm in their fantastic restaurant is grown and reared on site, with the highlight being their crew of Mangalitsa and Middle White pigs reared on a diet of local high-quality vegetables, fruit and leftover sourdough. Pork is the game here and man they do it good.

We stayed in their new rooms, cosy converted barn suites, each with its own bathtub and ours a special one, with a view of the famous Coombshead bakery which quietly springs into action at 5am each morning and by the time you awake and step out of your door, all you can smell is fresh, steaming loaves of sourdough.

Those Steaming Loaves make the start of all meals at Coombeshead and we were careful not to fill ourselves up because the food is truly brilliant. Breakfast is made up of their bread, a home made sausage or bacon from their pigs, we had ours with some confit leeks and then locally sourced yoghurt, home made granola and honey from their hives. That'll get you going. Dinner is served in their restaurant, a casual affair of 3-5 courses depending on which night you stay. We had beef pie with a proper suet crust on our first night and an incredible middle white t-bone pork chop on our second, both INCREDIBLE.

You come away from a stay at Coombshead Farm feeling inspired but also proud of what fantastic quality products the UK agriculture community can produce and thankful that places like Coombshead exist to...