Last winter the waves were higher than the houses. “It’s like a bomb has gone off,” the Start Bay Inn wrote on Facebook. By then, multiple storms had battered Torcross, a tiny and beautiful village in Devon’s South Hams. The sliver of coast road between the sea and an otter-occupied ley washed away. What was a five-minute drive for the staff from Slapton to Torcross can now take up to an hour through the lanes.
Six months later and most of the seafront houses and businesses are still smashed in, washed out and boarded up. Not this pub: outdoor sea- breezed dining has resumed, if the passing traffic hasn’t.
Drinkable liquids
Much of the beer is local. Start Bay Bitter is £4.60 and a small pinot grigio blush, £4.80. Drink perched on the sea wall, although the bar’s deep-red carpet also allures. Parts of the building are 14th century. The toilets are in the back corner and some locals take a shortcut behind the bar to avoid circumnavigation.
Sea beef
Beer is good but you come here for the food. Fish and chips should usually only be bought from a chip shop, its place on most pub menus a concession to tourists and the imaginatively challenged. Not so here. A large typically contains two bits of fish. The curry sauce is elite. Other seafood options depend on what the landlord and lady have caught in the bay. Crab, lobster, scallops, bass, the rest. The staff can be meticulous about condiment provision: only sachets on that table, proper bottles for indoors. But that’s their prerogative. A magnificent pub. Those with power reading: fix the bloody road.
The Start Bay Inn, Torcross, Devon
[Further reading: Beer and sandwiches: At the Black Bull Inn in Sedbergh]