HOT on the heels of winning the Westcountry Cooking Award 2000, Percy's at Coombeshead restaurant at Virginstow is now able to display three RAC Dining Awards — an accolade for which the owners are 'thrilled to bits'.

The Bricknell-Webbs have reported maximum bookings at weekends since one half of the duo, Tina, appeared on ITV Chef of the Year in January. But this latest award is the couple's highest yet.

'We have been trying to get three rosettes with the AA for some time so to get three dining awards from the RAC is great,' said Tony Bricknell-Webb.

'We were thrilled with the Westcountry cooking award but this is a national award and rates us more highly at the moment than anything we have ever had before.'

Percy's is the first restaurant/hotel in Devon to receive this award and to fit the criteria it had to show, amongst other things, 'cooking of the very highest national standards, demonstrating well developed technical skills and a high-degree of imagination and flair in well executed dishes.'

Mr Bricknell-Webb said they worked to better their standard all the time and were currently in the process of converting their garden to be solely organic, so they could be registered organic by the Soil Association.

The restaurant was listed in the Good Food Guide last year as the only organic restaurant in Devon.

'About 85 per cent of the produce we use is organic from meat to coffee,' he said.

The owner said the busier the restaurant got the busier his producers were and that was better for the local economy at the end of the day.

The Bricknell-Webbs are hoping to plant 26 hectares of woodland on land they have acquired next to their premises, create hunter trial courses and footpaths and are planning a large bar extension.

Despite the numerous awards the restaurant has won since it opened three and a half years ago, Mr Bricknell-Webb said there was also something more to achieve, so he is now aiming for the creme de la creme — four RAC Dining Awards.