Monday, August 31, 2026

The Top 28 Restaurants Near Elephant

  1. Rank 1. Elephant

    Modern British


  2. Rank 2. Roam

    Modern British

    A converted barn tucked behind the shop and tasting room at Sandridge Barton wines, with a terrace running alongside a stream and lunch the only meal on offer. The daily menu moves with the seasons, pulling fish from Brixham and wild ceps from Dartmoor, and the cooking keeps enough out of the way that the ingredients make their own case. Order a glass of the estate's own wine while you're at it.


  3. Rank 3. The Seahorse

    Seafood Italian

    Waiters carry the day's catch tableside so you can pick your fish before it goes into the charcoal oven, which tells you most of what you need to know about this seafood bistro on the Dart Estuary. The menu weaves Italian instincts through Brixham landings, and a second bottle of wine tends to happen before anyone notices. Start in Joe's Bar, then let the room do the rest.


  4. Scallops arrive with roe sauce and carrot kimchi, which tells you everything about this little high-street restaurant in Dartmouth: the cooking is far more precise than the rustic room suggests. Local seafood from Torbay and Brixham runs through the menu as a through-line, but French and Italian technique pull in different directions, happily. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand. Book the chef's table upstairs if you want the full show.


  5. Rank 5. Circa

    Modern British

    An old building on Totnes High Street that has been, among other things, a cobbler's and a mayoral theatre, now doing its most convivial turn yet as a sharing-plates restaurant with a bistro hum. The menu leans on open-flame cooking and fermented flavors, and the owners are the kind who actually check that you're having a good time, which turns out to be a fairly reliable indicator that you are.


  6. Rank 6. Lympstone Manor

    Modern French

    A Georgian manor house set in sculpted grounds above the Exe estuary, with a veranda made for a pre-dinner drink on the rare Devon evening when the sun cooperates. Michael Caines runs this Michelin-starred fine dining room, where the cooking is classical French in structure and very serious about local produce, without ever feeling like it's trying to impress you. Bedrooms are available for those who'd rather not drive home through the dark.


  7. The winding lane through the Devon moors ends at a grand Edwardian mansion, and the dining room inside holds a Michelin star. This is country house cooking in the full sense: white tablecloths, produce foraged or grown on the grounds, and classically structured dishes that treat the ingredients as the point. Comfortable, unhurried, and unapologetically formal, it's the kind of place that makes driving down a very narrow road feel like a reasonable life decision.


  8. Rank 8. Emilia

    Northern Italian


  9. Two pianos and a snooker table share the floor with open fires and wooden beams in this village pub beside a 13th-century church in Devon. The daily menu shifts with whatever's good, then does as little to it as possible, which is more or less the St. JOHN gospel. Communal long tables mean you'll be sharing elbow room with strangers by dessert, which seems appropriate given the building next door.


  10. Àcleaf sits under the wooden beams of a former minstrels' gallery inside a hall that traces its roots to the Domesday Book, which is a lot of history to eat dinner in. This Michelin-starred fine dining room keeps the cooking restrained and precise, leaning on prime seasonal ingredients worked through a modern, internationally minded lens. The room is cosy and intimate, which softens the formality just enough to make the whole thing feel like a discovery rather than an occasion.


  11. A cosy 18-seat restaurant tucked inside a rustic barn on a sprawling 500-acre Devon farm, The Refectory keeps its menu close to home, drawing on the estate's own Longhorn cattle, Manx Loaghtan sheep, and whatever the nearby coastline sends over. The setting does a lot of the work, with an ivy-covered manor house next door making the whole thing feel less like dinner and more like a country weekend someone else organized.


  12. A coaching inn that's been around forever, with a glass-covered courtyard that makes a sunny afternoon feel like a good idea. Inside, the dining room runs modern and unfussy, with a seasonal à la carte and tasting menu that lean into colourful, well-composed plates. The attached deli and wet fish shop give you something to carry home, which softens the blow of leaving considerably.


  13. The lane to South Pool is narrow enough to make you question your choices, but the pub at the end of it sits among thatched cottages like it grew there. The short menu leans on lamb and beef from the owners' farm a few miles away and crab from Salcombe down the road, keeping things honest rather than clever. Two nearby cottages mean you can skip the white-knuckle drive back until morning.



  14. A converted salt house in Sidford that's been feeding people long enough to earn the word "institution" without embarrassment. The dining room splits between the Abbots Den and the Garden Room, and the menu moves from small plates into straightforward, classically grounded mains. Afternoon tea is on if you're passing through, and a handful of bedrooms means you can stay and properly explore Devon rather than just driving back in the dark.


  15. Rank 16. Glebe House

    Country British

    A former Georgian vicarage turned smallholding restaurant in deepest Devon, where the chef grew up and eventually came back to feed people on ingredients from the surrounding fifteen acres, pigs included. The tasting menu is unfussy country cooking explained by the people who made it, and the old house carries the kind of worn-in calm that makes you feel like you've been taken off the grid for a few hours.





  16. Rank 20. Sandro's

    Modern British

    Sixteen covers in a snug Lyme Regis dining room, with a chef who grew up here and cooked his way back. The menu is Modern British with flashes of Italian running through it, unfussy and direct in the way that only confident cooking tends to be. The Michelin Guide has it selected. His partner runs the floor with the ease of someone who enjoys the work, and together they make a small room feel like exactly the right size.


  17. Rank 21. The Cotley Inn

    Modern British

    Animals raised on site, produce pulled from the kitchen garden, and the Blackdown Hills rolling out beyond the window. This is a proper country inn, the kind where slow-roasted pork belly makes complete sense on the menu. The cooking leans local and seasonal with enough creativity to keep things interesting, and the converted outbuildings mean you can stay the night and pretend the commute home doesn't exist.


  18. A working farm in Cornwall where the kitchen cures, pickles, and grills over a central wood fire using animals raised on the same 66 acres outside the window. The dining room leans into it: animal skins on the chairs, antique cutlery, handmade pottery. The sourdough alone justifies the drive out here. A young team runs the floor without fuss, and there are rooms if you'd rather not navigate country lanes in the dark.



  19. The drive in sets the tone: a long, tree-lined approach through a walled estate, ending at a garden full of sculpture before you've even sat down. This modern British restaurant offers a dining room open to the kitchen or a glasshouse with garden views, and the menu follows the seasons closely, leaning on foraged and local produce. Dorset countryside as both backdrop and larder, which is a hard combination to argue with.


  20. A 16th-century house on the main square of a small Dorset market town, this is the kind of cozy, unpretentious restaurant that makes shabby-chic feel earned rather than styled. The menu is short, Mediterranean-leaning, and moves with the seasons. Cooking is confident without being showy, letting good regional produce do most of the talking. Their homewares shop, Brassica Mercantile, sits directly across the road, if you leave wanting to take the vibe home.


  21. Rank 26. Augustus

    Modern British


  22. A sandstone inn in a village so picturesque it feels slightly unfair to the rest of Somerset. Inside, old beams and exposed brick sit comfortably alongside more modern touches, and the kitchen's personality comes through in the kind of Modern British cooking that actually earns its rusticity. The team runs the bakery next door, and the sourdough that opens the meal makes the case early. Rooms are available for those who find leaving inconvenient.


  23. Rank 28. Holm

    Modern British

    A former village bank converted into a restaurant, and the bones of it still read clearly: high ceilings, interesting architecture, a distressed-chic dining room that somehow feels neither precious nor shabby. There's a kitchen counter if you like watching the work, and a rear terrace when Somerset obliges. The menus shift with the seasons, and seven rooms upstairs mean you don't have to rush back to anywhere.


Recents

  • No recent searches yet.

Eat Score

The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

    How we score →

    Drink Score

    The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

      How we score →

      Stay Score

      The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

        How we score →

        Do Score

        The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

          How we score →

          Best Place Score

          The Best Place Score rates the area around a point, not any one place. It runs on the scored places nearby: more good stuff within reach, higher score. If it looks low, we probably haven't found enough critics out here yet.