Dart Marina

Devoted to leisure and pleasure, Richard Seton’s spa hotel overlooking the Dart estuary is a perennial readers’ favourite. It is ‘faultless’, writes one this year. Winter or summer, says another, ‘everything ticks over to perfection’. Rooms, designed to soak up the ever-changing river view, are painted in muted pastels and washed with watery light. Some have French doors to a balcony; others, sliding glass doors to decking with glass balustrade. Junior suites have a dual-aspect lounge and a wet room with drench shower. All rooms have air conditioning, a coffee machine, fresh milk, and binoculars for porpoise-spotting. The staff are ‘fabulous’, under ‘ever-present’ manager Paul Downing. In the restaurant, Peter Alcroft uses local produce, freshly landed fish and shellfish for his unfussy dishes – perhaps a risotto, fish pie or dry-aged South Devon beef. There is a lounge menu and, in season, Cloud Nine pop-up van-bar parks on the waterfront to serve drinks and lunches – Exmouth mussels, pulled pork and ciabatta – to eat alfresco as you watch people messing about in boats. (Ian Malone, Peter Anderson, and others)