William Sitwell reviews The Cotley Inn: ‘A mighty fine pub with warmth, style and flavour’
The Blackdown Hills roll and straddle the border of Devon and Somerset. There is ancient woodland, there are ponds, there are rare plants, endless birds, butterflies and bats, there are sweet hamlets and villages and towns with names like Honiton, Hemyock and Chard (is there a Swiss district, I ask in the last – one of my funnier jokes) and absolutely no phone signal.
So the area has much going for it. And if you don’t care for walks or cycling, via Iron Age forts or Second World War airfields, there is a mighty fine pub at its heart. You can head straight there while your pals earn their lunch with reckless exercise, which you’ve earned just by getting through the week.
It’s called The Cotley Inn and I challenge you to find a pub that combines such welcome, warmth, style and flavour. For as we all know, it’s tricky to balance locals and visitors, mud and high heels.
And just as you might judge a hero in a book by whether they are kind to animals, so too can you judge a pub by its attitude to dogs. They get points for a bowl of water and bone-shaped treats by the entrance. But The Cotley Inn ploughs a path to glory with its ‘muddy paws shower’ outside the pub, helpfully labelled so the dogs know where to head.
There’s a modest front bar where locals sip ale, flanked by a number of dining spaces so you can choose cosy twos or more lively eights. And it’s all decorated in soft duck-egg blue with pretty wall lights, branches attached to the ceiling that twinkle with fairy lights as dusk approaches, hunting prints, old maps, antlers and the odd stuffed head of a wild boar.
By the door there are walking sticks and wellington boots and copies of Country Life to flick through. The Cotley Inn is gloriously entrenched in the culture of the Blackdowns and there’s a menu of hearty food to match. It’s local and they ram the message home on the back of the menu – local or homegrown fruit and veg, similarly game from a local shoot, bread and chutney made in-house and even the crockery, which is fired in a nearby pottery.
A blackboard of bar snacks sucked us in nicely for starters: we shared scampi with a crisp skin and the softest flesh imaginable, and some impressive halloumi fries. Often the latter are let down by a clumsy and thick batter, but these had a thin coating and were clearly fried in the freshest oil.
I then ravaged a plate of perfect contrast, flavour and texture: a charred and sticky roundel of feather blade of beef danced with the green crunch of romanesco and asparagus. Instead of potato, it came with naughty little cuboid fritters of chickpea showered with Parmesan. It was a beautifully orchestrated plate, as was the red mullet with fennel, butter beans and chorizo. These were dishes dressed with precision and poise.
We ended with a nice little frangipane tart, with its lovely hint of almond, glazed fig and a fat dollop of quenching vanilla ice cream, and a chocolate and coffee brownie sitting on a gooey swipe of white chocolate they call fondue, with a clever scattering of tart blackcurrants and a small measure of salt.
With charming, friendly service, I wanted to stay ’til the twinkly lights came on and work through the local cheeses and the pub’s excellent wine list. But we tore ourselves away. Sensibly, perhaps, or I’d probably still be in there now.
