Michael Deacon visits The Five Bells Inn, Devon

But will the food match the appeal of the location at this idyllic pub restaurant?

We’d only been in devon for two days, and already my wife wanted to live there .‘ you could commute to london,’ she said dreamily, as we stood on the platform at dawlish station, gazing out at t he sun-dazzled sea. ‘Just think. This would be your view, every single morning.’

‘ but I wouldn’t be able to see it,’ I said. ‘I’d be having to catch the train at about 3am.’

It was lovely, t hough. not just t he view of the sea, but everything. The air, for one. If you live in north Kent, like we do, or pretty much anywhere else in t he sout h-east, you forget about a i r. your nostrils are so routinely assaulted by pollutants that you become numb to them. you grow used to waking up with a blocked nose. It’s so normal, it doesn’t occu r to you t hat t here’s a ny t hi ng wrong. Which means that, when you visit a place like devon, the freshness is startling. It feels like breathing cream.

Then there’s the countryside. north Kent has countryside too, but it’s not the same. The colours there are different. duller, drabber, dowdier. everything–every flower, leaf and blade of grass – seems to be coated in a film of grime. you peer at the world as if through a smudged and dusty lens, the lens of a phone stuffed in a grubby back pocket. Then you arrive in devon – and instantly the lens is wiped clean. The colours are brighter, richer, more intense. Green is greener. blue is bluer. ever y where you look is a landscape begging to be framed.