We’d barely made it past Barnstaple when the satnav decided we were going the scenic route, so by the time we pulled up outside Corffe House the sun was already low over the fields. The drive itself had been fine until I insisted on “just one quick stop” at a farm shop for clotted cream, which somehow turned into buying an entire pasty the size of a dinner plate and then dropping it butter-side down on the passenger seat. By the time we reached the cottage I was still picking flakes of pastry out of the upholstery and muttering about how the upholstery would never forgive me.

Corffe House sits just a short walk from the beach path, and even with the faint whiff of warm pasty clinging to my jeans the first sight of it was enough to make us both grin. Pale stone, a proper slate roof, and that low doorway that always makes you duck whether you need to or not. Inside, the kitchen greeted us like an old friend: big wooden table, a Rayburn that looked ready for anything, and shelves already stocked with mismatched mugs. We dumped our bags, opened a window to let in the salt air, and immediately started debating what counted as “supper” after the earlier snack disaster.

That first evening we wandered down the lane to the local pub, the sort of place where the menu is handwritten on a chalkboard and the chips arrive still sizzling. I ordered the fish and chips with a side of mushy peas, partly out of habit and partly because I wanted to see if Devon’s version lived up to the memory. It did, and the pint of local ale that came with it tasted even better once I’d stopped laughing at the small smear of tomato ketchup I’d managed to get on my sleeve. We sat outside until the midges found us, then wandered back along the hedge-lined path with the sound of the sea just audible over the sheep.

Next morning the plan was simple: hit the Saturday market in the nearby village for whatever looked good, then attempt something proper in Corffe House’s kitchen. The stalls didn’t disappoint—fresh crab, new potatoes no bigger than marbles, and a round of cheese that the seller swore would “go lovely under the grill.” Back at the cottage we spread everything across the table like we were on a telly cookery show, then promptly realised we’d forgotten anything green. A quick forage in the garden turned up a handful of herbs someone had thoughtfully left in a pot, and before long the smell of garlic butter and crab filled the kitchen. It wasn’t perfect—the rice was a touch gluey—but sitting at that same wooden table with the windows open and the evening light sliding across the fields, it felt like exactly the right amount of effort.

By the second night we’d already fallen into a rhythm: market in the morning, pub lunch if the weather held, and then back to the cottage to see what we could cobble together from whatever we hadn’t eaten yet. One evening we tried pasties again, this time without the car-park detour, and managed to get them golden rather than merely warm. The small triumph of not burning the pastry felt oddly significant, as if the cottage itself was gently encouraging us to slow down and pay attention to the little things.

What struck me most, looking back, was how quickly the days organised themselves around food. The mishap with the first pasty had set a tone of cheerful imperfection, and everything that followed—the market hauls, the pub suppers, the slightly over-ambitious crab linguine—felt like part of the same story. Corffe House didn’t need to do much; it simply gave us a kitchen, a table, and the excuse to keep coming back to both.