Restaurant in Exeter, United Kingdom
12-seat counter, weekly menu, book ahead.
Stage is a 12-seat counter restaurant on Exeter's Magdalen Road, holding a Michelin Plate for consecutive years and rated 4.9 on Google from 375 reviews. The weekly-changing six-course set menu is strong value at ££, and the drinks flight — mixing wine with cocktails, shrubs, and shandy — is worth taking. Book ahead for dinner; it fills fast.
Getting a table at Stage is easier than you might expect for a Michelin Plate-recognised restaurant, but you still need to plan ahead. The 12-seat counter fills quickly once evening slots open, and the communal set-menu format means the room runs at capacity from the first sitting. Book well ahead for dinner; lunch may offer more flexibility. The effort is worth it, particularly if you have been once and want to understand what the kitchen is genuinely capable of across a full season.
Stage sits on Magdalen Road, a residential stretch about a 10-minute walk from Exeter city centre, and the address undersells what is inside. The format is counter dining: a 12-seat marble-topped bar faces a glass-divided kitchen, so the cooking team is visible throughout the meal. The room is quiet in the leading sense — conversation carries, the kitchen operates with minimal drama, and the energy comes from the food arriving rather than from background noise or DJ sets. If you are coming from a loud, scene-driven restaurant expecting theatre and buzz, recalibrate. Stage trades in focus and craft, not atmosphere engineered for Instagram.
The space has been refined over the past few years: booth-style seating replaced earlier arrangements, and the reception point moved to the entrance, which improves the flow of the room. These are small changes, but they signal a restaurant that takes the mechanics of the experience seriously. The front-of-house operation is described as effervescent and runs with what reviewers have called galvanising panache — an unusual combination of warmth and precision for a room this size.
The kitchen team behind Stage has a genuinely interesting backstory: the collective previously ran a Taco Boys horse-box on Porthilly beach in Cornwall before establishing this Exeter restaurant. That origin matters less than what it produced , a kitchen culture that is technically grounded but not precious, and a menu sensibility that draws from a wide range of influences without straining for originality. Felix Craft leads the kitchen; Robbie Ashby runs the front. The combination produces a restaurant that feels like a collaboration rather than a showcase.
Stage runs a set menu only , six courses at dinner, four at lunch, changing weekly. That weekly rotation is the main reason to return: if you have been once and ordered everything, there is an entirely different menu waiting for you next month. The kitchen leans on prime regional ingredients, with past dishes including 14-day aged Barbary duck, abalone with black rice and liver sauce, and lobster with crab salad. Documented courses have included Chinese sticky chilli beef made with battered and glazed shin over stir-fried spring greens, crisped pollock with lemony fennel and wholewheat farfalle in 'nduja fat, and a rhubarb frangipane tart finished with milk espuma and cornflakes. These are not safe, crowd-pleasing combinations , the kitchen takes positions and mostly lands them.
The drinks flight deserves more attention than it typically gets. On a documented visit, only three of the six drinks were wine; the remaining three included aromatic cocktails, shrubs, and shandy. This is the aspect of Stage that most distinguishes it from comparable restaurants in the South West. Most set-menu restaurants at this price tier offer a wine pairing built from conventional pours. Stage's approach treats the drinks as a parallel creative track , not always a literal match for each course, and occasionally reckless in pairing logic, but consistently interesting and occasionally surprising. If you are returning for a second visit, taking the drinks flight rather than ordering by the glass is the stronger call. You will understand the kitchen's thinking more fully, and the non-wine options in particular are worth experiencing as a sequence rather than individually.
For context among comparable UK counter-dining experiences: hide and fox in Saltwood and Moor Hall in Aughton both operate tightly controlled tasting formats with serious drink pairings, but neither runs a flight with this ratio of non-wine options. Stage's willingness to include shrubs and shandy alongside wine is a genuinely distinct position.
Stage is priced at ££, meaning it sits in the mid-range bracket , meaningful spend, but not the ££££ territory of London destination restaurants. For a six-course dinner with a creative drinks flight in a Michelin Plate kitchen, the price-to-experience ratio is strong. You are not paying a London premium for a London-equivalent experience; you are paying Exeter prices for cooking that competes well above its postcode. Compare that to Gidleigh Park in Chagford, the Devon benchmark for formal fine dining, which operates at a significantly higher price point. Stage is the better choice for anyone who wants technical cooking without a formal dining room or a hotel bill attached to the experience.
Stage works leading for two people who are interested in the cooking rather than the occasion. It is a poor fit for large groups , the 12-seat counter format makes groups of four or more logistically awkward and changes the dynamic of the room. It is also not ideal if you need flexibility on dietary restrictions, as the weekly-changing set menu format leaves limited room for significant substitutions; contact the restaurant directly well before your visit if this applies. For a solo diner or a pair who want to eat well in Exeter, sit close to a working kitchen, and follow a drinks programme that takes genuine creative risks, Stage is the correct booking.
For other counter-dining and tasting-menu experiences worth considering across the UK: L'Enclume in Cartmel sets the benchmark for produce-led tasting menus in England outside London. Midsummer House in Cambridge is the closest comparable in terms of format and price positioning for a regional audience. Hand and Flowers in Marlow offers a different format , pub rather than counter , but a similarly strong regional reputation. If you are travelling to Exeter from London and want to benchmark Stage against the capital's counter-dining offer, CORE by Clare Smyth and Restaurant Andrew Fairlie in Auchterarder sit several price tiers above Stage but represent the ceiling of what the format can achieve. For broader Devon context, Gidleigh Park in Chagford remains the county's most formal fine-dining address. See also our Exeter experiences guide and Exeter wineries guide for broader planning.
Stage is a counter-only restaurant , the 12-seat marble-topped counter facing the kitchen is the entire dining room. There is no separate bar area or walk-in section. All diners sit at the counter and follow the set menu. Booking in advance is required; walk-ins are unlikely to find space, particularly at dinner.
Stage runs a weekly-changing set menu with limited substitution flexibility built in. If you have significant dietary restrictions, contact the restaurant directly before booking , not on the day. The format is not well-suited to multiple simultaneous dietary requirements, so be specific when you reach out. Minor allergies are more manageable than complex multi-item exclusions.
There is no a la carte at Stage , the set menu is the only option, and it changes weekly. The drinks flight is the one active choice you can make, and it is worth taking. Past menus have featured 14-day aged Barbary duck, abalone with black rice and liver sauce, and lobster with crab salad, but the weekly rotation means specific dishes will differ from visit to visit. Returning diners should focus on the drinks pairing as the variable most likely to be different from a previous visit.
Yes, clearly, at the ££ price tier. A Michelin Plate-recognised kitchen running a six-course menu with a creative drinks flight , including cocktails, shrubs, and shandy alongside wine , at mid-range pricing represents strong value for the South West. You are not paying London prices. The 4.9 Google rating from 375 reviews confirms the value perception is widely shared. The only scenario where it might not feel worth it: if set menus are not your preferred format, or if you want flexibility over what you eat.
The six-course dinner format is Stage's strongest offering , the counter setting and glass-divided kitchen make the full dinner the experience the restaurant is built around. The lunch format (four courses) is a reasonable entry point if cost is a consideration, but dinner is the version that justifies the booking. Take the drinks flight. The non-wine pairings , cocktails, shrubs, shandy , are the aspect of Stage that most distinguishes it from other set-menu restaurants at this price point in the region.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Booking Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stage | Modern Cuisine | ££ | Easy |
| CORE by Clare Smyth | Modern British | ££££ | Unknown |
| Restaurant Gordon Ramsay | Contemporary European, French | ££££ | Unknown |
| Sketch, The Lecture Room and Library | Modern French | ££££ | Unknown |
| The Ledbury | Modern European, Modern Cuisine | ££££ | Unknown |
| Dinner by Heston Blumenthal | Modern British, Traditional British | ££££ | Unknown |
A quick look at how Stage measures up.
The entire restaurant is the counter — a 12-seat marble-topped bar facing the kitchen through a glass wall. There is no separate dining room or traditional table seating, so every guest at Stage eats at the counter. This format is the point: if you want a standard restaurant layout, Stage is the wrong choice.
Stage runs a set menu only, with no à la carte options, so dietary restrictions need to be flagged well ahead of your visit. The kitchen has handled individual allergies within the shared menu format, but the more complex the restriction, the more important it is to communicate it at the time of booking. Do not assume flexibility on the night.
There is nothing to order — Stage serves a set menu only, six courses at dinner and four at lunch, changing weekly. The drinks flight is worth taking: it mixes wine with aromatic cocktails, shrubs, and shandy, and adds meaningfully to the experience even if some pairings take risks. Book the drinks flight when you reserve the table.
At ££ pricing, Stage is one of the more straightforward value cases in UK counter dining. You are getting a Michelin Plate-recognised weekly-changing set menu at mid-range prices — not London destination-restaurant spend. For the format, the cooking quality, and the drinks flight, the price is fair.
Yes, particularly if counter dining and watching a kitchen work is a format you enjoy. The six-course dinner menu changes weekly, which makes repeat visits worth it in a way that a fixed tasting menu rarely does. At ££, it is not a commitment that requires much justification — and it holds up against set-menu options at significantly higher price points elsewhere in the UK.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
