There are plenty of places to eat in Plymouth, but few come with a back story as dramatic as The Artillery Tower. The restaurant sits inside the 15th-century Firestone Bay Artillery Tower, one of the oldest preserved military buildings on the city's seafront. The tower dates from the early 1500s: Piers Edgecumbe got a licence from Henry VIII in 1539 to fortify the area, and by 1588 it would have been the only permanent defence standing against the Spanish Armada. It was converted into a restaurant in 1983, and it has been run by Peter and Debbie Constable since 1998.
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Location is half the appeal. It sits on the sea wall at Firestone Bay in Stonehouse, about a hundred metres from the Royal William Yard and a few minutes' drive from the city centre, with views across Plymouth Sound to Drake's Island and Mount Edgecombe. Inside, the building's bones do the work: exposed stone walls, oak ceilings and a wood-fired stove. It is small and quiet, with only seven tables and a maximum of six people per table unless you pre-book, so it never feels crowded.
Chef Peter Constable, who has more than twenty years' experience, makes the bread, pasta, chocolate and fudge in-house, and the kitchen works from a high-end modern British menu built on fresh, local and seasonal ingredients from artisan producers across Devon and Cornwall. The supplier list reads like a map of the West Country: Gribbles Butchers in Ivybridge, Howells Butchers in Tavistock, Otter Valley Organic Poultry in Newton Abbot, the Real Veal Company in Looe, Gara Barton Venison from Bodmin, Ocean Harvest from Andy Trust in Looe, Crebers of Tavistock, Trewithen Farm Dairy in Lostwithiel, Britannia Shellfish from Beesands, Devonia spring water, Country Cheeses in Tavistock and wines from Christopher Piper in Ottery St Mary.
The menu changes with the seasons, so what you get will depend on when you go. A three-course menu is £69.50 and two courses are £65.50, with coffee or tea at £4.50. Nibbles open the meal with bread, a small soup, roasted pepper and a tomato and burrata salad. Mains run from sea bass loin with a small Greek salad to duck liver parfait on toasted brioche, mussels with pork loin and apple (with a £3 supplement), beef loin with mushrooms and shallot (plus £5), duck breast with mustard and spiced red cabbage, turbot loin with a roasted seafood sauce and rack and shoulder of lamb with green sauce. Dessert brings the lemon mousse with candied lemon, cherry and sultana ice cream with sweet sherry, a chocolate mousse with cherry and almond tart and amaretto ice cream — allow twenty minutes for that one — and a selection of British cheeses.
It is not a place to turn up on spec. The restaurant opens only on Fridays and Saturdays for dinner, with entry times at 7:00, 7:15 or 7:30pm, last entry at 7:30 and doors closing at 10:30. It is closed Sundays through Thursdays and at lunchtime, and shuts for the Christmas and New Year holidays and a few weeks in the summer. Bookings are taken only by phone or via the enquiry form, not by email, and a deposit of £30 per person is required, which you can cancel free of charge up to 36 hours in advance by phone. Free parking is available nearby, which makes the short drive from town easy enough.
