There are some restaurants that just seem to easily nail every element. Cosy atmosphere, casual European feel, well-balanced seasonal food, and endlessly exciting wines — how do they make it seem so easy?! Such is the case with Farmyard, the bang-on-trend restaurant and natural wine bar in St Leonards-on-Sea.

Specialising in dishes made from good-quality local produce, the menu changes based on what’s available. You know there’ll be some sort of delicious Hastings Old Town fish dishes, but exactly what depends on what the boat’s brought in, always a properly good sign. If fish and seafood’s not your gig, there are great meat options (salt marsh lamb chops, or well-aged steaks from down the road in Pevensey, or the like) as well as a creative array of plant-based dishes. Things like salt-baked celeriac with truffle and blue cheese, or spiced cauliflower with tahini and dates — not your run-of-the-mill dressed greens, that’s for sure.

Plumping itself as a wine bar as well as a restaurant, it’s no surprise that the wine list here is to die for, too. With around 150 bottles from across Europe as well as Sussex, the changing blackboard of open wines offers plenty of choice (by glass or by bottle), always carefully chosen exclusively from natural and biodynamic producers. If it ain’t organic, it ain’t served at Farmyard. (Tip: it also acts as a wine shop, so you can just pop in for an excellent bottle of wine to go).

Fancy a roast? Farmyard do a cracking one on a Sunday, made with their signature standard of excellent local meat and fish, plus trimmings.

Farmyard has two great sibling businesses, also in St Leonards-on-Sea: Heist (a street food market) and Boatyard (a fish restaurant inside the market).