The Pig at Combe

I've been to a few of the Pigs now, but Combe is the one that made me understand what all the kitchen garden fuss is about.

The manor sits in the Otter Valley — all Gothic arches and honeyed stone, with a bronze pig crouched on the forecourt like he owns the place (he does). We arrived in the grey of late afternoon and the house was already lit from within, every leaded window glowing amber against the bare trees.

Inside, the dining rooms have that signature Pig quality — walls rubbed back to look like aged plaster, dark floorboards, mismatched bistro chairs, botanical prints in dark frames. But it's the shelves that stop you. Floor-to-ceiling jars of pickled and preserved things: ruby-red beetroot, jewel-bright chillies, pale cornichons, cloudy ferments I couldn't name. The kitchen garden, distilled. You sit and drink and stare at them and feel like you're inside someone's larder in the best possible way.

The glasshouse is a short walk from the house — a proper Regency orangery, stone columns and tall windows, fire pits burning outside in the dusk. We went out to look at it before dinner and it was already one of the most beautiful things I'd seen. Cedar trees on the lawn, the path lit by small lanterns, and that warm gold light spilling from inside.

I think it's the accumulated effect of it all — the garden feeding the kitchen feeding the jars feeding the menu — that makes the Pig at Combe feel different. Every Pig has the kitchen garden ethos. Combe just happens to have a Tudor manor, a Regency glasshouse, and a Devon valley to put them in.