The golden Lion in East Devon

The best fish we've had. Service amazing. Lovely little find

Ever since we discovered this restaurant 3 or 4 years ago it rapidly became one of our favourite places ever . The food is ALWAYS lovely with a good choice . Usually quite a bit of seafood which we love ( the crab thermador starter is yummy ). We like what the French owner has crated with the layout and design. We love it so much even if we are staying an hour away we will still book a table . Absolutely love the place

We only popped in for a pint, but the smell of the mussels wafting through the bar, made us change our minds and eat. We weren't disappointed, will definitely eat here again

We came here 3 years ago and the food was excellent, we were very impressed with the Mussels we had. This time the Mussels were very small and gritty. We were not impressed with them nor the price. Wish we had been informed before we had ordered.

Excellent food, friendly service. A very good place for a lunch.

Staff are rude and unwelcoming. Made our visit not very enjoyable. Wouldn't go again.

The best place to eat in the area. Been coming for many years

My son and I booked into another local restaurant this evening but sadly the menu was not to our taste. Gave the GLion a quick ring and they managed to fit us in to what was a very busy evening dining wise. The food was amazing and you could not fault the staff in any way. Friendly, helpful and attentive. Good atmosphere with folk enjoying a Saturday night out in a local pub. We ordered Scallops and Crevettes for starters, Lamb shank with veg and Mussels for mains, with extra starter portion of Pate with toast! (Because we were starving lol!). Still had room to fit in a Rum & raisin ice cream with large dollop of clotted cream. Stuffed was the word! For the all round experience, we found it worth our money. Thank you for a great evening and will be seeing you again. G Ross and Mother👍

Always a fab place to eat, food is delicious, service is 5 star, lovely atmosphere, been going there for 20 years now.

Went today Great food . Great Service. The Guinness 100 per cent. my Great Irish friend said it was perfect. He is 69 so does know. We will be back. Best Wishes to all. The Great Staff and the Great Chef. 10/10 from Bob Bristol. Faultless. Thank You. Bob.

Excellent Devon village pub with delicious well presented food and friendly efficient staff..

Good food, service and environment made this restaurant stand out from many that I have visited. Very enjoyable pub/restaurant

Friendly and welcoming staff, great food and selection of ales, very dog friendly, but outside only, and a great destination for a walk 👍👍

Great meal at the Golden Lion. Top quality pub, with a French twist to the menu. Kids loved it too, especially the fab deserts. Great specials menu and friendly attentive service. Best meal of the trip to Devon! Also, good walk by the river afterwards accessed via sports ground...

We've eaten here a few times and always been delighted. There is ample parking, a wonderful outdoor area, gteat service, and the food is delicious. Last night we chose from the specials board: whole Dover sole, John Dory, summer fruit crumble, and my favourite an amaretto afogato.

What a fantastic find. We were fortunate to secure the last available table and we are so very glad we did. Such a lovely pub with a superb selection of meals on offer. We all ordered different fish based meals from the specials board and each was fantastic as were the lovely deserts. The food served is to a very high standard and is still what we would consider very reasonably priced. The staff are so great, really welcoming and so friendly and helpful. It’s just such a brilliant place and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Food wonderful and staff friendly and very helpful

Tipton St John is a quiet village between Ottery St Mary and Sidmouth. However, the Golden Lion is very popular and it is best to book a table rather than just turn up. The newly resurfaced car park is excellent. The menu offered a good choice of pub food favourites and we all enjoyed our meals. Only one dish disappointed. The service was friendly and efficient

Guinness was pored very badly took it back,manageress said she pored it properly?.I said if it was I would not bring back. Anyway no apology at £6 I think it should be pored properly.Will not be returning!!!

Everything about this place was amazing from the food to the service to the atmosphere. The welcoming and helpful staff were happy to chat about beverages etc. It is a little pricey, but who doesn't mind paying a little extra for great food enjoyed in great surroundings with the best of friends?

A fantastic pub . Went there for dinner and will be back when next visiting the area. Our first time but certainly not our last . You will have to look hard to beat this for atmosphere and quality . Host excellent

Amazing! Never anything but. Would highly recommend ... lovely, friendly place.

Food was delightful. Sat in the garden for a birthday celebration and service was speedy considering there were 7 of us and 2 dogs. Only criticism is how far the walk to the toilets is, we had a disabled family member with us and it was quite the struggle for her to get through the pub. Some easier access toilets nearer the garden would be great but this is hardly a quick/cheap fix so can't fault the pub for it! Everything else was grand.

What an absolutely beautiful place! A slice of France in a stunning corner of Devon. The setting, the service and especially the food, is first class! Thank you, we will be back!

Excellent Pub , interesting and comprehensive menu. Friendly staff . Food served in good time and hot .

Had a fabulous evening here with friends. Great food and service. Would highly recommend. 😃

Amazing menu. Party of 6, each with a different dish, never heard the table so quiet. Everyone throughly enjoyed their meal.

Wonderful food and great personal service. Highly recommended.

We popped in for a quick drink and some chips after a dog walk ... everyone who works here was so friendly and helpful and couldn't do enough to make us feel welcome.

Delicious meal. Cheerful helpful staff. No long waits. Thank you

Good menu. Lovely location. Reasonably priced. Very busy and had to book even at lunchtime.

Excellent food and excellent service

A 40th birthday meal for 11 people. Service was excellent. One of our party is a Gluten free vegan and nothing was to much trouble for the staff in checking the ingredients for us. The food was outstanding, so much choice and variation and extremely yummy. Atmosphere was very relaxing we can't wait to return. Thanks for a wonderful evening 😊

Attendee the Golden Lion on a very wet weekday evening for a family meal. Never been before and had no preconceived ideas on how it was going to be. The pub itself is warm and welcoming with a pleasant ambiance. A nice blend of modern and older public house. The staff were attentive and happy to explain or answer any questions on the menu and provided a prompt, unfussed service at the speed we wanted. The food arrived without undue delay and pipping hot (just the way I like it). The food was excellent and not a crumb was left. I really can't recommend this location as somewhere to consider if you are looking for an enjoyable, relaxing meal.

Lovely pub. Great food, friendly staff . Worth booking, we were there on a Thursday evening and it was very busy

Very flexible albeit limited staffing levels. Great food.

Lovely pub. Very busy. I had cornish sole with new potatoes and veg. Followed by a delicious plum crumble with ice cream.

Excellent food and service as always.

Excellent food very good value for money.

Very busy and popular pub. I had great expectations. Steak and ale pie was good, potatoes cooked perfectly and veg was good. Relatively expensive for what you get and I felt the whole thing was very rushed. Not a lot of ambience. Nice seating area outside. Staff were polite and friendly.

If your near this place just go in the food is amazing and so friendly dogs are welcome o and the ploughman's with the cheese was amazing just worth a visit

Great service and great food from start to finish

Went in to buy 9 drinks, got told I had 3 minutes to order them, paid for them and was told the inside was full (it wasn’t), so we had to stand outside in the rain to drink the drinks. Never going to go back. The bar staff are rude!

Great food menu and friendly, attentive service.

Friendly busy quirky pub with nice ambience, pretty gardens and a cosy interior. Our first visit was fantastic husband had escargots I.had garic prawns and our son had whitebait. We all had something from the specials board, seabass, hake espagnol and steak hashir. The food was excellent as was the service The reason why I am only giving it 4 stars is because we chose from the general menu on our second visit, starters baked brie, crab thermidor and calamari and for mains we had steak and kidney pudding, steak and ale pie and i had scampi. It was very average and we were also sat next to a group of people who seemed intent on us hearing their conversations, this spoiled the experience for me and I was dissappointed with the food, however I wont give up with this place and intend to return and hopefully make better menu choices and sit in a better place.next time

The food was superb. Brilliant service and friendly surroundings.

Superb lunch as usual. The fish soup is superb and a meal in itself. Staff are lovely and make you feel welcome. Prices have gone up but only to be expected.

Stunning meal, Moules starter followed by John Dory Main. Very fast service with friendly, helpful staff and very good real.ale o the pumps👍🏻😁

The food for 4 was excellent, seemed to be lots of staff all helpful and friendly. A few more vegetables would have been good. Nice selection and the desserts - yes lovely. Mango cheesecake🤤

A hidden gem with the most wonderful comfort food, great selection of wine, very attentive service/staff and a lovely ambiance. Also a wonderful garden out the back for dogs and children!

Perfect little place along a nice river walk, lovely staff, great pub

Very pleasant pub with excellent food served well.

Lovely food, great service and a really nice evening

Nice place and garden, food was decent but looked better than it actually was.

Excellent service and food was delicious. Will definitely be returning when I come to visit my parents next. Highly recommended

Lovely country pub with excellent food. French cum traditional pub food, lots of fish dishes and very reasonable prices. Would love to come back asap

We had a lovely meal The veg looked liked it just throw in the serving dish Lovely atmosphere & very friendly staff

Delicious lunch. Fresh, tasty and varied menu. Beautiful pub and gardens.The chunky fish soup was exceptional. Lovely service. Just what we needed after our river walk. We will be back!

Great Food and service one of my favourites.

Beautiful pub, awful experience.. we were told that we weren't allowed to eat food in the garden which we thought fair enough, only to see that Katie Hopkins who was sat opposite us in the garden receive a huge bowl of chips 🙄. We waited ages for drinks, had table water glasses but no table water. Ordered the muscles and when they arrived not one had been de-bearded, not the most appetising having to pull a load of hair out your mouth. Complaint made at the time about this, not that apologetic really and nothing taken off the bill at the end.. won't be coming back

Fresh, delicious 😋, fish 🐟 and chips 🍟. Swift and friendly service ✅

Great Food & Great Cider...🍎🍎🍎🍎👍

Disappointed. No scallops, website misleading prices and menu. Been before and excellent but we'll be wary next time.

Had drinks outside in the beer garden , very nice . Don't just turn up if you want food as very popular.

Chips and drinks in the garden were just right in the middle of a long walk. Very good, quick service.

Great food. Great staff. Very friendly and welcoming.

An amazing meal for the four of us. Generous size, tasty and excellent service. Loved it.

Very nice, great choice of food and lovely staff..back very soon for sure 👍👍

Great food, great staff, great evening!

First time for us we just popped in while passing glad I did great pub and food friendly staff made to feel at home

Had the fillet steak and my god it was awesome..... would definitely go again

Fab local pub located in Tipton St John. Great well kept local ales and delicious home cooked food. Park the car in Newton Poppleford and walk up the river and get some lunch.

Very nice food at good prices. Lovely staff.

Very friendly and accommodating staff. Great beer and very nice food! Highly recommended.

Met old friends for lunch. Food, beer and service excellent. Highly recommend the fish soup.

It can be a bit of a challenge booking somewhere to eat with friends/family that you can rely on to deliver.We’ve eaten in many ‘decent’ and significantly more expensive eateries around but this place delivers every time.The setting, the staff, the drinks and of course the food is faultless, thank you so much for being consistently a very enjoyable place to come.NB my apologies for the ‘well aimed’ paper ball last time we came out.

They have a great chef. The jugged venison was delicious. Book well in advance if you want dinner. We only managed to squeeze in for lunch.

Very unwelcoming pub. For some reason the garden was closed for ‘winter’ on the hottest day. Staff didn’t seem interested in us at all.

Fabulous pub and brilliant staff and the food is sooooooo good. Thank you Golden Lion

Have not been here for a year or two. The prices seem to have gone up and the portion sizes gone down. Overall, the menu looks interesting but my venison saddle with blueberry sauce was distinctly light on the venison. The blueberry sauce was excellent. The accompanying vegetables, whilst very nice, were distinctly disinteresting - plain carrots, beans and peas - no red cabbage, which goes so well with venison, or cauliflower or leek au gratin. For the price, I have seen many larger portions of cod and chips. Probably will not bother to return

Was disappointed in the £15.50 Goan pork curry, very salty sauce, not much meat and after eating a particularly fatty bit I just couldn’t eat any more. The waitress was disinterested in my complaint and refused to consider a discount. Sadly I won’t be returning.

Just absolute 5 stars from me. A local for us and we have been coming here for years. The staff are just absolutely lovely and makes you feel very welcome. The food is spot on and caters for everyone. A must go for anyone who hasn’t!

The 22/9/21 was a special wedding anniversary for us so we decided to book a table at lunchtime to celebrate, little did we know our very special friends decided to join us as a surprise so phoned the pub to extend the booking.The atmosphere was very charming and the staff were extremely friendly. The menu had a good selection of fish and meat different dishes and were beautifully prepared and presented. The staff were around but left us to it keeping a friendly eye on us incase we needed more drinks etc. Due to obvious difficulties at the moment The Golden Lion has to limit their table covers but when you can get a table it certainly worth everything I certainly will go again but give plenty of time for booking. Thank you for working so hard making a difficult time special.

This rates as one of the best meals we have had out for a long time. We found all the staff and owners to be extremely friendly and helpful. Lovely menu with many French dishes. I had the Breton chicken which was plentiful as well as delicious while my husband had the duck Magret which was cooked to perfection. Meals were served with lovely fresh vegetables, again beautifully cooked. The menu is lovely and reasonably priced too with so many choices and we can't wait to get back to try more dishes.

Very nice main course but sweets were very overpriced, £6-95 for a very thin slice of apple tart and custard -good selection of local ales - friendly and knowledgeable staff

Struggled to choose from the varied menu.

Good welcome, wonderful service and fantastic food, what more can you say

Decent place strange opening hours

Great food ,fantastic sevice friendly staff .

Great food, warm friendly and excellent service.

Lovely local food with a French ambiance

The food was very good, but the service left a lot to be desired. Not very attentive at all

A very special pub. You won't experience anything else like it within 20 miles. Wonderful owners, too.

Another great evening spent here. Booked for dinner with friends who were visiting us. As always the food was excellent and the atmosphere just right. Nice to see Marco on good form and that he had the time to stop and have a friendly welcoming chat. Looking forward now to our next visit.

The pub is beautiful, the staff is super kind. We were walking today 22nd July 2021 with Ramblers and came for a drink in the garden and they even refill our bottles with fresh water. Very lovely staff. Thank you!!

Frankie and his team never fail in their quest for excellent food and service. Thoroughly enjoyable, as always.

Whilst visiting family we had a table booked. Have to say every course was delicious! Well cooked, nicely presented and service with a smile. What more could one ask for? Would definitely recommend. Well done team 👌

Lovely outside area and delicious food. Great

A regular eating experience always good and has never disappointed. The chunky fish soup is the best I have ever had anywhere in the world. Great crew who work there. Going back next week.

Great garden, chips and service