An ostrich, stuffed but still looking quite pleased with life, keeps an eye on guests in Paschoe House’s Library Bar. This is a boutique luxury hotel – in an rural emerald corner of Devon – far distant from the ostrich’s native African environment.

That ostrich is just one member of a quirky collection of taxidermy at this hotel that sits west of Exeter, south of Exmoor and north of Dartmoor. A squirrel clutches her last nut and, in the light of the Morning Room, a contented curled badger sleeps an eternal sleep by a crackling fire.

Initially, a disgruntled platoon of mounted boar and deer heads in the entrance hall suggests traditional country house decor. Then lighting from a delicately contemporary antler chandelier changes the mood. Amazingly, one interior design statement can set the tone.

Paschoe House is the English country house reinvented, reimagined with a light feminine touch. It was Tabitha Fern’s dream to transform her family’s abandoned home into an idyllic country retreat renowned for the quality of its food.

Gourmet aficionados fly into Exeter airport, to be collected by Robin Fern in Paschoe House’s Landrover Discovery or he will collect them from a local railway station. As the reputation of the restaurant grows – and guests travel from afar for Chef Craig Davies’ fine menus – there are plans for a helipad. The restaurant has just been awarded a third AA rosette and the Michelin inspectors keep dropping in as Davies targets a Michelin star.

A kitchen garden, once lost and forgotten under a landslip, is being replanted and rejuvenated to produce 25 fruit, herbs and vegetables every season. Menus for 2020 are already planned around that seasonal produce. The Casual Dining menu is served in the Library Bar and Morning Room with the a la carte menu provided in the main restaurant. But it is the seven course tasting menu that gives Craig Davies the opportunity to display his skills.

Creativity and imagination conjure up exceptional tastes. Autumnal hazelnut lingers in a winter parsnip veloute given creamy tones by taleggio cheese. Davies’s precise use of sous vide cooking, skills acquired from an apprenticeship of working with some of Britain’s greatest chefs, produces a lobster’s tail that is unbelievably succulent.

Surprisingly, the wine flight is predominantly light and white. Champagne paired with the lobster. Flavours of pigs cheek, cooked sous vide slowly for six-and-half-hours, are best served by a Rhône white. Only for the Red Deer, a powerful winter-warmer of shoulder of deer en-croute and a loin of red deer, served with red currants, trompette mushrooms, chestnut, truffles and a venison jus – does a robust Dao emerge. Finally, a 10 year old Madeira is served with the rich Manjari, the grand cru of chocolate.

With just nine bedrooms – rurally themed by names such as badger, deer, rabbit and decorated with original artwork that you can buy and take home – Paschoe House is an idyllic and intimate rural retreat distanced from the chaotic 21st century by a long private drive.

There’s a romantic story to the Hedgehog room. During the recent renovation builders found a tin secreted within the wall containing love notes addressed to Pigs – “Meet me by the swing” and “Meet me in my bedroom”. Pigs was the nickname of Frank Surgery who owned the house from 1948 to 1958. Could this have been an illicit master / servant romance?

Although Robin runs chauffeur driven tours to sights such as Castle Drago and Chagford most guests spend much of their time relaxing around the house and grounds. With breakfast served from nine o’clock, this is a place for luxurious lie-ins, a game of croquet on the lawn or a massage in your room – a place of glorious indulgence.

Paschoe House is a hotel worth lingering at to enjoy afternoon tea after walking a stretch of the Two Moors footpath and prior to a spot of gin or wine-tasting guided by the sommelier. Then, fortunately, it will be time for dinner again.