Where to eat on working farms: 14 great restaurants and cafés Published 17 June 2025
It's Sustainable Gastronomy Week and what better way to mark it than by seeking out a local farm and dining directly from the spoils of the land. From a dairy farm in Norfolk, where you can pick up a pint of raw milk after brunch, to a radically regenerative farm in Cornwall, this line up of farm restaurants will take you straight to the source.
A rural retreat with the very best of farmhouse cooking
Coombeshead is a working, developing farm with owner Tom Adams making new decisions all the time about what livestock to keep, what to grow that will best suit the soils, and how to present the bounty of the land to its best advan… Read more
Coombeshead is a working, developing farm with owner Tom Adams making new decisions all the time about what livestock to keep, what to grow that will best suit the soils, and how to present the bounty of the land to its best advantage. The accommodation aspect of the business is its principal attraction (not least for the excellent breakfasts) but a four-course evening menu at £65 is well worth a detour.
Proceedings open with the famously good bread served with sunny-yellow farmhouse butter before a starter of mangalitza pork terrine or a simple preparation of just-picked vegetables. Main courses could be a hefty leg of guinea fowl, served with stewed tomato and string beans, plus dressed salad leaves. Our inspector's dessert – a perfectly rendered frangipane tart of haskap berries with clotted cream – felt like the best kind of farmhouse cooking.
As for wine, it's a matter of browsing the cellars for yourself and picking out something suitable. If you've arrived hot-foot from far away, take a long, meandering wander around the fields. Smell the wild garlic. Look at the chickens and the piglets. Relax.
Set on a 120-acre farm in the heart of the Tamar Valley, Crocadon is chef Dan Cox’s passion project, his answer to regenerative, sustainable farming and the pursuit of pure produce. It's a work in progress from the former Si… Read more
Set on a 120-acre farm in the heart of the Tamar Valley, Crocadon is chef Dan Cox’s passion project, his answer to regenerative, sustainable farming and the pursuit of pure produce. It's a work in progress from the former Simon Rogan lieutenant, who has put blood, sweat and tears into developing the soil-centric fields and pasture, establishing a diverse range of heritage and better-known varieties of plants and vegetables, and building up his flock of rare-breed sheep – all of which supply the restaurant at the centre of the farm. Launched in spring 2023, the bijou dining room (housed in an historic barn) is a Scandi-style space where ornate House of Hackney wallpaper at the entrance gives way to stone walls, beams, light wooden tables and sheepskin-clad chairs. Tasting menus (£75 or £105) which run for three evenings a week, are a culinary assault course – an adventurous trip highlighting what the land can produce while celebrating a tight network of best-in-class suppliers. In comparison, we found Sunday lunch (£45) to be a more accessible feast – and surprisingly good value, given the culinary wizardry coming from the open-plan kitchen. The main event centres around Crocadon’s lamb, perhaps a six-year-old Romney/Lleyn cross. Seamed-out leg meat is served tender and pink, while slow-cooked, melt-in-the-mouth shoulder is decorated with fruity Cylindra beetroot and pickled in shiso. Accompanying garden vegetables could include smoky barbecued carrots, a purée of pickled carrots and nasturtiums, a lasagne-inspired Kalibos cabbage layered with Crocadon’s fresh cheese, and a leguminous fricassée of flageolet beans, broad beans and runner beans blended with a delicious emulsion made with lemon pepper and topped with crispy kale. For dessert, Crocadon's play on Eton mess is a minty herb cream (using pickings from the restaurant’s garden entrance), blended with herb- and rose-flavoured meringues and served with an elderflower sherbet and gooseberry jam – proving that what grows together, goes together. The drinks list is short but perfectly curated: wines by the glass have a focus on soil health and agriculture, and there are delightful non-alcoholic pairings such as meadowsweet and lavender cordial. The on-site café and bakery are well worth a detour too.
‘A must for a family day out,’ this enterprising set-up brings together a farm shop, restaurant, butchery and events space on Penllyn Estate. Not surprisingly, the daytime menu is tailored to all palates and preference… Read more
‘A must for a family day out,’ this enterprising set-up brings together a farm shop, restaurant, butchery and events space on Penllyn Estate. Not surprisingly, the daytime menu is tailored to all palates and preferences – although everything is dictated by produce from the Estate (much of it organic). Start the day with a full Welsh breakfast or spiced eggs Benedict, linger over coffee and cake, or drop by for a lunchtime fill-up (a home-smoked chicken club sandwich, Nepalese lamb with Asian slaw or beer-battered haddock). There are grills on Friday and Saturday evening, while Sunday is a showcase for juicy roast joints and the freshest home-grown vegetables. Pizzas and burgers ‘to go’, too.
Working regenerative farm serving fabulous seasonal produce
When the sun is shining, this simple but artfully decorated barn on a working regenerative farm feels a bit like heaven. The small dining room is flooded with light from a large picture window, while stone walls and a rough concre… Read more
When the sun is shining, this simple but artfully decorated barn on a working regenerative farm feels a bit like heaven. The small dining room is flooded with light from a large picture window, while stone walls and a rough concrete floor are given character by earthenware jugs of dried flowers, blackboards listing the month’s harvest, and shelving made out of wine crates. It feels a bit like a pop-up, and the staff greet you like an old friend.
Head chef George Barson’s weekly changing menus showcase the farm’s produce alongside the best of what’s grown or foraged in this particularly bountiful corner of Somerset. Meat and fish in the form of, say, a glistening hunk of ham with smooth buttery mash and a vibrant parsley sauce or trout fillets on a neat plinth of potato salad, share equal billing with vegetable dishes – maybe leeks smothered in a rich rarebit topping and dressed with shards of pickled onion and rye croûtons. You would be a fool to leave without ordering a side of ‘chips’, fat bricks of compressed potato slices, slow-cooked in butter overnight and then deep-fried to crunchy perfection. To conclude, perhaps opt for a light dessert – a quenelle of refreshing rhubarb sorbet, say, or some homemade Neapolitan ice cream.
The short drinks menu highlights Somerset ciders and English wine alongside inventive cocktails, while a longer list of low-intervention Italian wines chosen by the farm’s owners Matteo and Giacomo Grasso is also worth considering – although by-the-glass options are thin on the ground.
Stock up on raw milk and dairy produce, home-reared or locally sourced meat and East Anglian cheeses at this little deli on family-run Old Hall Farm, a few miles from Bungay. A bright, busy café offers spectacular breakfast… Read more
Stock up on raw milk and dairy produce, home-reared or locally sourced meat and East Anglian cheeses at this little deli on family-run Old Hall Farm, a few miles from Bungay. A bright, busy café offers spectacular breakfasts, vast homemade cakes, and light lunches that could include a grazing board with Mrs Temple’s Copys Cloud, Binham Blue and Wells Alpine cheeses, a burger made using Old Hall beef (served in a brioche bun with sriracha mayo) or a special of slow-roast shoulder of pork with mustard mash.
A 'field to fork' farmstead restaurant is always a bracing proposition, and this one, deep in the Pembrokeshire wilds is no exception. Whatever beaten track there might be hereabouts (actually the B4320 near Hundleton), they're of… Read more
A 'field to fork' farmstead restaurant is always a bracing proposition, and this one, deep in the Pembrokeshire wilds is no exception. Whatever beaten track there might be hereabouts (actually the B4320 near Hundleton), they're off it. It's a testament to the success of the formula that somewhere so remote can still receive as many nominations as it does for our Best Local Restaurant awards, with the super-friendly, helpful and enthusiastic staff receiving lots of plaudits. You eat in the former milking parlour, perhaps snuggled into one of the old stalls, beneath clumps of pampas hanging from the rafters, with an open kitchen at one end generating a steady stream of ingenious and heterogeneous plates from Michelle Evans' fertile culinary imagination.The seasonal set menu is a rolling feast that changes every day depending on supplies from the farm and beyond, but the following should give a clue to the kind of food on offer: asparagus with crab, pickled chilli, lemon and dill, with the brown meat folded through a silky mayonnaise; baked whole bream with romesco; glossy, golden-crusted mutton, leek and smoked Snowdonia cheese pie served with garden kale and Café de Paris butter. Veggie options are always intriguing too – perhaps wild mushroom and truffle arancini or BBQ hispi cabbage lathered in umami-rich miso butter with some chilli heat and soothing, creamy aïoli. Dessert could bring chocolate mousse or cherry and tahini ice cream; otherwise, opt for a plate of Welsh cheeses. There might also be honey madeleines by the half dozen too. 'Even the drinks are in season,' gasped one reporter, wholly appreciative of a rhubarbed-up version of pisco sour – although there are some 'fantastic natural wines from a young importer,' too.
Reconfigured Yorkshire inn excelling at 'farm to fork' cooking
A shining beacon on the edge of the romantically desolate North York Moors, the Black Swan is a stone-built inn, now more obviously a regional restaurant with rooms. Inside, it has been daringly reconfigured for its contemporary p… Read more
A shining beacon on the edge of the romantically desolate North York Moors, the Black Swan is a stone-built inn, now more obviously a regional restaurant with rooms. Inside, it has been daringly reconfigured for its contemporary purpose, with spare modern furniture and unclothed tables against a backdrop of thick stone and heavy beams.
Former civil servant Alice Power is the latest incumbent in the Swan's kitchen, disposing over two acres of kitchen garden, overseeing a tireless foraging operation, and maintaining the format of a lengthy taster of around a dozen stages – a menu structure that crucially depends on robust endurance. That said, there is no sense of overload about these dishes, largely because they don't go heavy on carbs.
First nibbles evoke excited first impressions, from smoked eel and oscietra caviar with fennel pollen to a bite-sized chunk of truffled roe deer with celeriac. Foraged ingredients provide the haunting aromatics in dishes ranging from scallop and leek with spruce to lobster with salt-cured rhubarb and lemon verbena. A thrifty approach to meats might find locally shot partridge served first in a broth, followed by its heart and liver with chestnuts, a leg with elderberry and fir, and finally the roasted breast with Pablo beetroot and bread sauce.
An innovative approach to desserts ensures that the latter stages of the production are among the most memorable: mushroom-dusted chocolate ganache with meringue and chocolate/honey pieces, as well as yoghurt ice cream with wood sorrel and Douglas fir oil applied at the table. The rather over-rehearsed mood of service – often a feature of the tasting format – would benefit from relaxing a little.
Three levels of wine flight are offered to accompany the cavalcade of flavours, ranging from ‘experimental and adventurous’, through ‘grand and classic’ to ‘rare and exceptional’, depending on depth of pocket. The first might embrace a Naoussa Xinomavro with that partridge, the second a 2009 Beaune premier cru ‘Les Epenottes’, the last Calera's 2008 Pinot Noir from Sonoma, California.
Local ingredients treated with respect in a stunning location
Only a few miles from Hay-on-Wye, this former drovers’ inn close to the Welsh border is so peaceful and secluded that it's no surprise many visitors remark on the ‘spectacular setting’. Sympathetically renovated … Read more
Only a few miles from Hay-on-Wye, this former drovers’ inn close to the Welsh border is so peaceful and secluded that it's no surprise many visitors remark on the ‘spectacular setting’. Sympathetically renovated and reopened in 2021 by local regenerative food and farming company Wild by Nature, the pub has a timeless charm. Inside, the split-level dining rooms have thick stone walls, wonky-beamed ceilings, slate floors and a large open fireplace. Outside, a large, pretty garden offers tables with stunning views under the watchful presence of Herefordshire’s imposing Black Hill.
A strong connection to the land and a deep respect for ingredients shine through chef Damian Clisby’s seasonally changing menu. Dining here is farm-to-table and nose-to-tail, with ingredients grown or reared at a nearby farm owned by the restaurant group. Almost everything, from the charcuterie to the cheese biscuits, is made in-house. Whether this is a wild garlic soup with a fried hen’s egg and prosciutto, Black Mountain hogget and merguez with white beans and green sauce, or a buttermilk pudding with rhubarb jelly, hyper–local ingredients are treated with a respect and care that enables their flavours to sing.
Everyone has a good word to say about the friendly and attentive staff, while drinks feature local beers and ciders as well as a short list of minimal intervention wines, which offers a better choice by the bottle than the glass. Accommodation is in four bespoke 'wild cabins' in the grounds of the pub.
'Agricultural fine dining' in an expansive family-run enterprise
Almost lost amid the tangle of east Devon villages, Darts Farm is rather more of a hive of activity than the nearby Exeter airport. It's a family-run enterprise (and then some), with a wellness spa, extensive farm shop, butch… Read more
Almost lost amid the tangle of east Devon villages, Darts Farm is rather more of a hive of activity than the nearby Exeter airport. It's a family-run enterprise (and then some), with a wellness spa, extensive farm shop, butcher and deli counters, vineyard, farm walk and bird hide, among other amenities. Alongside a maze of other eating possibilities, serving food in the very precincts where much of it is grown, there is also now the Farm Table for ‘agricultural fine dining’ – a very 21st-century style.
You might feel you are eating in a large hangar, but the quality of what the kitchen puts out tends to encourage people to get a little glammed-up for the occasion. The rattle call of ice-cubes being shaken is a sure lure to the bar, and a dedicated pizza chef always raises expectations, amply fulfilled with the arrival of grilled flatbread topped with pancetta, hot honey and garlic butter.
Nibbles are full of allure: burnt broad-bean pods sprinkled with chilli salt or crispy brawn bites with rhubarb and apple sauce might kick things off, ahead of a simple salad of sweetly delicious picked-this-morning beetroot, chicory and truffled Graceburn cheese – an array of incomparable ingredients. Fish dishes are forthrightly but sensitively handled, as when a hulking fillet of a sea bream is teamed with pickled cockles, tomatoes and jalapeños, all sauced with a thick ajo blanco.
Gold-standard meats range from a starter portion of grilled pigeon breast with lentils and redcurrants to Ruby Red steaks and Creedy Carver duck, the latter with grilled radicchio and pickled cherries in red wine. Portions tend to the hearty, meaning that two might easily share a whopping rhubarb sponge pudding topped with a gigantic clod of clotted cream, but if you are feeling a little delicate by now, consider gin and strawberry parfait with pink-peppercorn meringue. Special-occasion menus add to the offer, and there is an excellent range of drinking to contemplate, from fruity cocktails to a well-chosen list of wines at manageable prices (from £6 a glass).
A celebration of home-grown produce on an organic, no-dig farm
What started out as a communal dining experience in the old milking byre of this family farm has morphed into something more flexible, with a seasonal carte now providing plenty of choice. Seating is still at rustic trestle tables… Read more
What started out as a communal dining experience in the old milking byre of this family farm has morphed into something more flexible, with a seasonal carte now providing plenty of choice. Seating is still at rustic trestle tables peppered with plant pots, but you can now swing by for Sunday lunch as well as dinner. It is considered a 'magical set-up'. On the menu, you’ll find the farm’s produce in all its glory: the owners rear and butcher heritage Dexter cross cattle, Shetland sheep and mangalitza pigs, as well as growing organic fruit and vegetables. They also love their smoker – even the sourdough bread is tossed in to create a cindery hard crust, before being served with whipped butter zig-zagged with sticky honey.
Expect small bites ranging from a garden 'scrumpet' with kimchi mayo or a no-nonsense hogget offal flatbread with charcoal mayo and Corra Linn (a strong local ewe's cheese) to coffee-roasted beetroot on a bed of creamy crowdie and skirlie. Main courses are farmyard-hearty: salty slabs of hake in a smoked mussel sauce; Shetland hogget loin with kale and a 'wee hogget pie'; hay-baked celeriac with fava beans and sunflower seeds. On Sundays, expect a mound of pink roast pork and potatoes in their skins, with plenty of gravy.
To finish, there could be a blackcurrant-leaf custard tart with flowering currant topped with scorched meringue or a pale pistachio pumpkin-seed ice cream with porridge praline and tiny cubes of caramelised swede adding a toffee tinge. Staff are friendly, and the drinks list focuses on sustainable wines (including a hefty contingent of skin-contact varietals) alongside foraged cocktails and craft beers. They’ve also started making their own cider with donated apples.
In the lea of the magnificent ruins of Binham Priory and part of Abbey Farm, this lofty-roofed flint barn was renovated in 2022 to provide a stylish, dramatic space for breakfasts, light lunches and afternoon tea – and even … Read more
In the lea of the magnificent ruins of Binham Priory and part of Abbey Farm, this lofty-roofed flint barn was renovated in 2022 to provide a stylish, dramatic space for breakfasts, light lunches and afternoon tea – and even a view of the cattle when they’re in their winter quarters. Come for kedgeree, gnocchi with wild garlic pesto or the 'Parlour platter' with hot-smoked salmon pâté, Marsh Pig charcuterie, Binham Blue and beer-washed Norfolk Tawny cheese (made with Abbey Farm milk). The milk is pasteurised on site for the café, but available raw from a vending machine in the adjacent Little Dairy Shop.
The winner of our 2020 'Chef to Watch' award has justified the faith we had in him. Not only has Will Devlin opened another restaurant in the area (Birchwood at Flimwell), but he's also built up the marvellously rural Small Holdin… Read more
The winner of our 2020 'Chef to Watch' award has justified the faith we had in him. Not only has Will Devlin opened another restaurant in the area (Birchwood at Flimwell), but he's also built up the marvellously rural Small Holding as a destination with a fondly loyal following. Readers are impressed by the unflustered efficiency with which it is run, and the measurable sense of refinement that has taken place in the cooking. The multi-course menu changes daily, and while the lack of choice may not suit everyone, there’s no doubting the quality of ingredients. What hasn’t been grown or reared on the one-acre plot (on splendid view from the large terrace fronting the simple white-painted building) is sought from small-scale sustainable artisan producers in the area. Nor does the cooking pile on ingredients or decorative bits for the sake of it, but concentrates on essentials. At one meal, a Maldon rock oyster was served with an ‘exceptional’ lovage cream, perfectly timed halibut came teamed with fermented wild garlic, sea herbs and a ‘sweet and delicate’ sauce made with Squerreyes sparkling wine and chives, while hogget (two-year-old lamb) served various ways – pink rump with tenderstem broccoli, sweetbreads glazed with honey, a brioche bun made with hogget fat and stuffed with lamb shoulder – was beyond reproach. Desserts tend to stick to a theme of iced and crumbed things, though an apple sorbet offset by some aged cider vinegar and sprinkled with powdered pine was a masterful play of sweetness and acidity. An enticingly broad-minded, well-sourced wine list includes a good selection of Kentish labels.
On the brow of East Portlemouth's hill, with the sweeping landscape of the Salcombe-Kingsbridge estuary below, this charming café is part of an artisan centre that embraces a campsite, smallholding, boat building and more b… Read more
On the brow of East Portlemouth's hill, with the sweeping landscape of the Salcombe-Kingsbridge estuary below, this charming café is part of an artisan centre that embraces a campsite, smallholding, boat building and more besides. The kitchen makes productive use of the farm’s rare-breed pigs, Devon red cattle and organically grown vegetables for a seasonal menu of simple brunch and lunch dishes (plus all-day coffee and cake). Sourdough is baked on-site to go with soups, quiches and the likes of Salcombe smokies with horseradish crème fraîche, while deftly executed ideas including sausages with skordalia and braised greens keep locals and visitors coming back for more. Usefully, the café is open all year, and there's a sister kiosk, The Old Stable, now open at the ferry steps.
It takes a bit of finding, but persevere because this collection of farm buildings turned cosy café/deli/glasshouse restaurant is the very definition of quirky. Anchoring everything is a no-dig market garden and a herd of S… Read more
It takes a bit of finding, but persevere because this collection of farm buildings turned cosy café/deli/glasshouse restaurant is the very definition of quirky. Anchoring everything is a no-dig market garden and a herd of Saddleback pigs that provide year-round supplies for hyper-seasonal chalkboard menus and style of cooking that is firmly from the gutsy, no-frills rulebook (don’t miss the spicy Tuscan fennel sausages). The kitchen satisfies the coffee-and-cake brigade, Sunday brunchers and those in for something more substantial: in winter, that might mean puntarelle alla romana (with anchovies) followed by confit Worton goose with beluga lentils. Come summer, the place really delights – especially if you're seated outside amid the greenery.
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