A cabin in the woods

Words by Martyn Odell aka Lagom Chef

Enjoying life low and slow at Inkie’s Smokehouse.

If you’ve read anything I’ve written before, you’ll know that my favourite places to eat are never the ones that are easy to find. There’s usually a gravel track, a questionable signal and at least one moment where you wonder if you’ve made a terrible mistake. Inkie’s Smokehouse ticks all of those boxes and then adds a waterfall for good measure.

Inkie’s is tucked away at Golitha Falls on the edge of Bodmin Moor, a cabin in the woods is how they describe it and, honestly, they’re not wrong. It’s the kind of spot that feels like it shouldn’t exist. You’re threading through some of the most dramatic landscape Cornwall has to offer, the sort of place where the trees are ancient and the air smells of nothing but damp earth and possibility and then suddenly there’s smoke rising, something extraordinary is cooking low and slow, and you realise the drive was absolutely worth every wrong turn.

The smokehouse is where Inkie’s whole moonshining adventure began, which tells you everything you need to know about the people behind it. They didn’t open a venue first and bolt a story onto it the food and the fire came first. The moonshine followed. This is a place built by people who actually care what goes into the pot, the glass, and the smoker. That order of events matters more than it might seem.

Now, I’ll be upfront,  proper low and slow BBQ is one of those things that gets talked about a lot and delivered on far less. It’s become a bit of a fashion statement in food circles. Everyone’s rocking a smoker, everyone’s got a rub and a worrying number of people are describing a slightly overdone pork sandwich as ‘world class’. Inkie’s is not that. What comes off the smokers here is the real thing;  brisket that has spent the kind of time it needs to; pulled pork that falls apart because it’s earned it, not because someone’s been impatient with a fork. The bark is right, the smoke ring is there and nothing has been rescued with sauce at the last minute.

The menu reads like it was written by someone who has genuinely thought about what belongs together. Breakfast runs alongside lunch, which makes perfect sense for a place you might drive 40 minutes to reach on a Wednesday morning. You’re not going to rush that. The setting alone demands that you sit down, slow down, and actually eat your food like a human being for once.

What I keep coming back to with Inkie’s is that the location and the food are completely in sync. Low and slow BBQ is the cooking equivalent of Golitha Falls  you can’t rush either of them,and they’re both better for it. There’s something almost poetic about sitting in one of the most ancient, unhurried corners of Cornwall, eating meat that’s been cooked with the same patience the landscape demands of you. Whether that was intentional or a happy accident, it works.

They’re open Wednesday through Sunday, 10am to 4pm, no booking required, all year round. That last bit matters more than people realise as too many good things in Cornwall are seasonal. The fact that Inkie’s is out there through a Bodmin winter, keeping the fire going, suggests a commitment that goes well beyond a summer side hustle.

If you’re looking for somewhere that isn’t trying to be anything other than exactly what it is a smoke-filled cabin in a beautiful wood, serving proper food made with care  then Inkie’s has you covered. Go hungry, take cash just in case and don’t be put off by the road getting smaller. It always does before somewhere worth finding.

LAGOM CHEF
LagomChef
www.lagomchef.com

Inkie’s Smokehouse
inkiesbbqjoint
www.inkiesmoonshine.co.uk