Courtenay Cafe in Teignbridge

Lovely food, classic pub grub but done well and reasonably priced. Liver was excellently cooked, slightly pink and soft and packed full of flavour. Service was good, we were checked back on, meals came promptly and cleared when finished. Nice cold wine and kids meals substantial for the price! Only marked down one star as bar is always busy (not a bad thing), but just makes it sometimes awkward leaning over drinkers to order food. However, always highly recommended for both food and drinks.

We came for Sunday carvery when we visited Dawlish. The food was good, although the beef was a bit chewy. The Yorkshire puddings were huge. Service was quick and friendly and the Covid-19 set up was good. We would return if we came back to the area.

Bovey Castle is certainly a beautiful and interesting location. However, with all their grounds parking spaces are a premium. Eventually, we were offered a space in a coned off area. A very well appointed building as your would expect for a Five Star Hotel. We began with an aperitif 'Gusbourne English Sparkling' which was superb. A absolutely delightful bar. Smith's Brasserie! Well, let's begin with the positives. Excellent welcome and staff were fantastic throughout our Birthday lunch. Extremely unimaginative menu to say the least. A nice enough starter. Perhaps would have expected freshly made mayonnaise, not from a bottle, in such an establishment. Pleasant enough bottle of rose, although there was a choice of ONE. My wife (Birthday Girl) and I opted for pasta dishes. Absolutely clueless when it comes to pasta dishes. Packet spaghetti with prawns (four small ones) and a Provencal sauce? Very little of it too. It is an Italian dish and the sauce requires mixing in the pasta. Tagliatelle, again from a packet, with some type of utterly non-descript cream sauce at the bottom of the dish. Totally unseasoned dishes. The cooking water needs to taste of the sea. Therefore, seasoned. No offer of cheese or pepper or pangrattato, nothing, and certainly no theatre. Huge improvements required I'm afraid to make an enjoyable dining experience. Dress Code: Expectations, as you would imagine were high. Staff were smart, but could have been better attired for such a hotel. Clientele: Lots of jeans and un-ironed tee shirts wondering around and dining. A pair of football shorts and dirty trainers at one table, others with feet on the chairs in the bar and the final straw was a couple arriving in towelling dressing gowns and flip flops. NO! Sorry. There's a time and a place and this is not acceptable. Unfortunately, this was a lunch to judge if a weekend stay would be appropriate for our anniversary and it simply is not good enough.

Sorry to say the service levels are not what they used to be. A welcoming smile would be nice.

It's a pretty standard coffee shop, nothing particularly remarkable about it but the staff are reasonably friendly and service is usually fast. However it is very busy and noisy! I've always enjoyed the drinks here, although the coffee is pretty average and you can definitely get better tasting drinks elsewhere. Whenever I've sat in though, there has been a constant stream of people that come in just to use the toilet and then walk out leaving the door open (and sometimes shaking their wet hands all over the place), so there is a bit of a smell. It's not really the fault of the store but it is off-putting.