The Times Magazine 93eating place the biological progeny of those
parts, and you’ve almost managed to sneak
sex into your tedious food review. But it has
to be illicit sex. Has to be the “lovechild” of
two existing restaurants, never just the “child”.
Because there is nothing funny or naughty
about a baby conceived within the bounds of
holy matrimony. That’s just morning sickness,
brown nappies, tantrums, tetchiness and no
sex ever again.
But for once, for ONCE, I’ve got a
restaurant for you here that is the actual,
legitimate child of two others, in the fullest
legal and biological sense. Because I am pretty
sure that it has involved a real live marriage.
And almost certainly sex. Although I don’t
know for sure, because one doesn’t like to pry
and... oh, gosh, what a pickle one gets in when
one starts with these things.
But it goes like this. You know how the
Duke of Cambridge in Islington was Britain’s
(and therefore the world’s) first fully organic
pub, back when animal welfare and responsible
stewardship of the land and protection of the
soil were cared about only by a few enlightened
people? And how that person, in the case of
the Duke of Cambridge, was Geetie Singh?
Good, right.
And you know how Riverford was a
trailblazing organic farm, veg box deliverer
and the site of Riverford Field Kitchen,
pioneers in great organic cooking with a focus
on vegetable-dishes-plus-a-little-bit-of-meat,
that changed the way people who ate there
thought about meal-making? And you know
how that was founded by Guy Watson?
Well, the Bull Inn in Totnes, where I went
for lunch a couple of weeks ago and have just
got round to thinking properly about, is
brought to you by a pair of individuals
called Geetie and Guy Singh-Watson.
Do you see what has happened there?
I can’t be certain they have got married,
because these organic people with their earthy
lifestyles and progressive ways can have pretty
radical alternative ideas about stuff like that
(Geetie grew up in a Herefordshire commune,
after all), but they have certainly taken each
other’s names. And it does say in a thing I
read online that Geetie “moved to Devon in
2012, having fallen for a local farmer”, so I’m
guessing that’s Guy. And they are both very
good-looking humans so why wouldn’t they
want to, you know... does little wolf whistle.
And so, finding myself in south Devon over
half-term, how could I not pay a visit to their
new joint venture, the veritable biological issue
of and unquestionable legal heir to the marriage
of the Duke of Cambridge and Riverford Farm
that is the Bull Inn in Totnes?
Opened in 2019 and then, obviously, closed
again for most of the past two years due to
that thing that everything closed for, the Bull
is a lovely, mazy old boozer (with rooms) that
has been done up at a cost of something like
£1.5 million but kept rustic and chunky and
very, very ethical. Chairs, tables, curtains,
crockery, radiators, doorknobs, indeed all the
fittings and furniture have been reclaimed and
upcycled. Kitchen heat is captured and used
to heat the water, there are solar panels, the
mains electricity is from renewable supplies,
carpets are 100 per cent British wool, the
kitchen is open and big, and blackboards
on the walls tell you not only about all the
delicious food on offer but also declare first
principles. Quite forcefully.
“The Conscious Compromise”, declares
one, “is when we consider all the facts we have
to hand and make the best choices we can interms of ecological-social impact. It’s about
trying your hardest to do the right thing...”
Which is not all that hard when another
board is crammed with dozens of delicious
dishes, pre-vetted for rightness. Such as a
golden, multitextured salad of beetroot, curd,
honey, hazelnuts and perfect fat little figs on
a blue and white plate that has seen plenty
of action, and deeply flavoured, cold roast
English beef, sliced thin, slathered with a
perfectly weighted celeriac remoulade, full
of dense earth and rustic, mustardy fire.
“Deliciously simple food – unfussy, sensibly
sized, cooked-from-scratch dishes” declares
the first of nine blackboarded “No-Bull Rules
To Dine By” over the kitchen pass, which also
include “veg-first” and “field-grown not flown”.
And you reply: sure, bring it on, if by that you
mean this lush brown onion soup and giant
crouton of Devon Oak cheddar on sourdough
toast, and these copper-coloured fried potato
“latkes” with aïoli.
There are “No-Bull Rules To Trade By”
too, another nine, and these include “green
energy suppliers”, “be rigorous in procurement”,
“question everything”... and it might all sound
pretty hard-nosed, deadly serious, quite a long
way from the flighty bow-tied Italian charmers
with the big pepper grinders at your local
tratt, who have given you so much harmlessThe grilled mackerel
is as shiny blue and
gold as a petrol puddle
on a garage forecourt
in afternoon sunshine
pleasure over the years. But the gay abandon
and hedonistic joy at the Bull is all in the
mouth, after the preaching’s done (or at the
same time as the preaching), in the char on
the edge of the pink bavette steak, its cubes of
shallow-fried spud and warming peppercorn
sauce and scatter of ferrous watercress (on
a dinky blue and pink floral plate), and the
buttery chew in the skin and fat of the
crosscut lamb leg, sweet as autumn grass, with
its melting butter beans and dreamy splats of
mossy salsa verde.
But it’s “veg-first”, remember, and so the
big brown crispy cauliflower on soft polenta
is simply regal in scope and ambition and
crunchy mouth reward. And the salad leaves
are just so full of bouncy new-sprung life and
meaty heft that I took endless close-up photos
just of them. Of the salad leaves! (There is a
messianic thing that gets hold of you here and
you go a bit nuts, wondering where this lollo
rosso has been all your life, and whether you
can ever talk to anyone who eats acid-washed,
gas-bagged salad leaves again.)
But there is crab on toast as well, and sweet
little clams with chilli and garlic butter on
toast, and a grilled, butterflied mackerel, shiny
blue and gold as a petrol puddle on a garage
forecourt in afternoon sunshine, on a salad of
skordalia and watercress and red and golden
beetroot and, oh, two lamb chops (from a
hefty adolescent beast, not newborn Easter
tragedy) to be wiped in their cumin-spiked
crème fraîche and za’atar, and chewed in all
their muscular, fat-slapped glory.
And that was about everything they had,
give or take. For there were eleven of us,
including children, and we were well manned
for the fight. Too well manned, in fact, and
had to get the kids out into the fresh air
before they tore the newly built place down
again. So we skipped pudding, bribed the
babies with inferior ice creams up the road
and legged it.
But we will return, and so will you. They’ve
got eight beautiful, blameless bedrooms
upstairs (and I bet the breakfast rocks) and it’s
a wonderful town in a glorious county. The
future, if we have a future, begins here. nThe Bull Inn
Rotherfold Square, Totnes, Devon
(01803 640040; bullinntotnes.co.uk)
Cooking 9
Values 10
Marriage 10
Score 9.67
Price Between £20 and £35 a head for
2-3 courses. Skewing cheaper the more
veg-based you go (they don’t hoik the prices
of the vegan/veggie dishes to match the
meaty ones, as so many places do).Eating out Giles Coren