The A38 linking Exeter to Plymouth is a super-expressway so fast that you bypass Ashburton in a blink.
Casual hearsay led us this small town on the southern fringes of Dartmoor National Park – more out of curiosity than in any high expectation. But moments after parking, we were charmed by the timelessness of the place.
In the town centre we discovered shops of real class and originality. Better still, the streets were mercifully innocent of big national brand names. No Boots. No WHS. No Next. No Pizza Express. No Burger King. No pound shops. Just a daisy chain of fabulous independents run by their passionate owners, all of them doing brisk trade on a chilly Saturday morning.
There are remarkable gems to be found in the antique shops and antiquarian booksellers’. The artisan baker had sold out by midday. Arts and crafts are the real thing. And Ashburton’s two delicatessens were so good we bought supper from them.
I should add that this is not a place for metro-fashionistas in search of the “cutting edge”! The watchword in this town is wholesomeness where values remain determinedly retro.
For me, of course, the greatest find of the day was its principal restaurant, Agaric (www.agaricrestaurant.co.uk), owned by Nick and Sophie Coiley whom I hadn’t seen for a decade or more.
Nick is a graduate of the Joyce Molyneux school of cooking. He was her top student when she ran the celebrated Carved Angel in Dartmouth. Joyce in turn, and now in her eighties, was the most distinguished disciple of George Perry-Smith, the patriarch of British chefs and the seed that finally flowered into Britain’s culinary renaissance. I guess this makes Nick Coiley George’s spiritual grandson in the kitchen! And it shows.
The significance and influence of George Perry-Smith and Bath’s Hole in the Wall, the restaurant he made famous in the 1950s, ’60s and early ’70s, should never be forgotten. Inspired by Elizabeth David, Britain’s greatest food writer, he transformed eating-out in this country and led the way for a new generation of gifted chefs. Sadly, too few young chefs these days have even heard of these two seminal luminaries. A fact I find kind of tragic – like not knowing who your mum and dad are.
Nick Coiley’s restaurant in Ashburton is as wholesome as the town – a wood burning stove in the centre of the room radiating a warmth of welcome. And his approach in the kitchen would certainly make George and Joyce proud. He bakes his own bread, cures meat and fish, makes his own pickles and preserves, ice creams and sorbets. And his menu is equally worthy of his great mentors.
To today’s ambitious young cooks, I say: Give the latest TV chef’s book a break and start reading Elizabeth David!
Kit Chapman, Proprietor, The Castle at Taunton & author of Great British Chefs (Vol.1 1989/Vol.2 1995)