Cafe ODE

“Celebrating our region’s finest food and drink, prepared and served with minimal impact to our environment. We are lucky to have incredible produce on our doorstep: herbs from our boundary wall, South Devon-bred beef, organic eggs, and dairy. We use plant-based packaging that is composted, have a sedum grass roof and solar thermal that heats our water, and we are actively educating the community in food sustainability.”

Teign sand eels, breadcrumbed and fried, served with a dipping sauce; wild Haldon fallow deer, humanely culled; and lentil dal.

Since beating Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage to become the Sustainable Restaurant Association’s Restaurant of the Year in 2012, this brilliantly conceived and entirely green stable-block conversion above Ness Cove in Shaldon has gone on to become a true legend in the field. Owner Tim Bouget has described Ness Cove as “a quaint drinking village with a fishing problem”. Well, it’s an eating village now, too, and possibly the highest rated sustainable restaurant in the country. Luckily for the drinkers, Ness Cove is also home to the Two Beach microbrewery, whose elderflower-tinged ODE Ale is a true beer hero.