The Vanilla Pod in North Devon

Such a great meal; thank you Vanilla Pod. The middle eastern influence was sublime bringing flavours and texture over and above the usual suspects. So many nice comments for our fellow diners.Nice wine list, thoroughly recommend the Bekka Valley Colombiers, like Chateau Musar but cheaper.Go on, support this small local restaurant.

Fantastic food, beautifully cooked attention to detail fabulous fusion of flavours. We loved it so much ,booked the following evening. Fantastic fresh ingredients. Front of house gentleman, friendly attentive and professional. Shame its not closer to home as we would go all the time highly recommend best food in Lyndon puts the rest to shame.

We were lucky to get a booking but I am really pleased we did. The food was exceptional and the service excellent it was well worth a visit.

Fantastic service from a group of wonderful servers! The staff were so lovely and they knew their food so well! The attention to detail in all their dishes was very impressive and it all tasted delicious. A pat on the back for the chef, the prawns were delightful. I will definitely be coming back for more if I do find myself in Lynton again.

Simply beautiful food! Lovely atmosphere too. A special dining experience... Look forward to visiting again when we are next in the area.

Just had to leave a review for this place, having spent a week in Ilfracombe and dining out daily The Vanilla Pod was amazing.Sadly we only had lunch, but everything we ordered was fresh and flavoursome.You can't help but look at everyone else's food wondering why you didn't order that instead. I had a savoury cream tea, fresh walnut scones with cheese but taken to another level with the spicy chutney! I can't even begin to describe the bakewell tart it's just food heaven.Will definitely be returning here when next in Devon hopefully for dinner.

The waiter was quite poor, but to be honest I'm more concerned about the food, drink and waiting times.So, the wine was room temperature when it arrived, they popped it in the freezer, but that meant I had warm, then no wine for the starter. Starter arrives, it's an amazing soup. I put pepper on it except they've put salt in the pepper pot. The soup is now too salty. Ok. My main arrives, It's hake on an amazing layer of chickpeas but they bottom layer is a smoky ghanoush and they've burnt it. If you've ever accidentally let a veg steamer burn dry and that burn taste spoils all your veg, that's the taste. it really sticks in your mouth and it totally spoils the £19 meal. I tell the waiter. Owner/chef comes over, it's so burnt you can smell it. It's foul, she doubles down and tells me, 'It's suppose to be like that, you should do some research.' I'm stunned, I'm so surprised I can't stop laughing. It's clearly burnt you can smell it's burnt from a foot away and she is telling me they intended to sell that for that money! At the end they had given a £6 discount, which we hadn't discussed. I should have argued, but I've never actually complained in a restaurant before and we just wanted to go.Maybe I was unlucky. Good luck future diner...Oh, the chip shop opposite smelled amazing and there was a lot of customers if you are wavering, I would if I had my time again.

Great coffee and they also serve a savoury cream tea which looked fabulous, the only downside is we visited in the morning, so didn't get to try it.A great range of soft drinks and welcoming staff.

Made bookings in advanced, and the middle eastern influence in the dishes was definitely a pleasant surprise. Food was good, but the desserts was the star! The sticky date pudding with caramel and clotted cream was absolutely divine!

we had a good dinner in this restaurant: soup, sardines and lamb kidneys as starters; lamb shanks and sea bass as mains; and a cheese platter at the end. everything was good (nothing exceptional hence the 4*). recommend you book by calling - we had reserved using their online system a week ahead, and despite having the email confirmation with me, there was no record of it in their system and they only managed to sit us with non negligible effort