The way back
- Feb 27
- 5 min read
Words by Jamie Crocker
On the edge of Dartmoor, Hippo illuminates the path for that return.
Somewhere between convenience and consumption, between the pharmacy counter and the supermarket aisle, we stopped trusting the ancient intelligence of real food. We traded forests and fields for factories, nourishment for novelty and in doing so, surrendered something far more precious than flavour: our sovereignty.
And yet we have normalised a different story. Medication from birth with prescriptions as punctuation marks across a lifetime. Symptoms are managed and silenced while the root causes remain untouched. We have been persuaded that healthy lives are to be obtained from a box with a beautifully designed ‘serving suggestion’ on the front.
Meanwhile, the food industry has mastered addiction, exerting its hegemony wherever it can. Ultra-processed products are engineered to make us cry out for more whilst maximising profit. In as little as 24 hours, our gut microbiome can shift. Hormones falter. Neurotransmitters misfire while inflammation simmers, ready to inflict chronic illness and pain, and yet we are told this is just modern life. We are sicker than we should be, more medicated than we need to be, and further from the source of our sustenance than ever before. But the way back is not complicated. It is earthy and colourful and honest. It is vegetables pulled from soil, pulses, roots (cassava, konjac) and fats that have not been tampered with beyond recognition.
Whole foods carry wisdom. Their phytochemicals do not work in isolation but in harmony, a complex, elegant symphony designed to support the body when eaten daily. At Hippo Naturopathic Bistro, to give it its full name, you’ll find that eating this way is not about denial or dogma. It is about remembering and relearning that food is information and connection, whilst exalting in the knowledge that it’s also jolly tasty.
Walk through the door at 1 Cross Street, Moretonhampstead and colour arrives first. Plants, paintings and plates that draw you toward a culinary experience that is shaped by evidence rather than fad. This is what Ione Rucquoi has built since opening in May. During Cancer Awareness Week, the specials leant into anti-inflammatory ingredients. For Chinese New Year, Ione and her chef Claudia worked out how to honour the cuisine whilst keeping everything within naturopathic principles. Taking what people already love to eat and rebuilding it from better ingredients.
Top Left: Seasonal arrangements from the Hippo kitchen garden | Top Right: Sweet potato ponzu
Above: Warm konjac noodle and pork belly salad
Naturopathy itself remains misunderstood. People hear the word and picture wishful thinking rather than nutrition science, peer-reviewed research and biochemistry that requires dedicated rigour. The College of Naturopathic Medicine, where Ione trained, teaches a food-first approach to optimal health. It examines how the body functions at a cellular level and why treating symptoms without addressing causes achieves nothing that will last.
The premise is straightforward: food is information. What you eat tells your body how to behave. Feed it engineered products designed to trigger cravings and it all goes out of sync. Feed it whole foods that still look like food, and your body recognises what it is being given and responds positively.
Ione spent time in clinical practice after qualifying, designing therapeutic nutrition programmes tailored to individual needs. The science was sound, but the psychology proved brutal. People arrived saying they wanted to change, then discovered they were not ready. Others found the financial burden prohibitive. The very people who might benefit most were often priced out entirely.
Hippo is her answer. A place where anyone can walk through the door and eat food that supports their health without needing a consultation or a second mortgage. The kitchen is fully gluten-free apart from sourdough bread. The dishes are balanced with plant and animal protein, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats, with everything cooked in organic pomace, coconut or olive oil.
Local suppliers are prioritised where possible. Some of them barely operate as wholesalers. One even delivers by cob horse or bicycle. Goat and hogget come from a couple of miles up the road, whilst venison arrives from the deer park that borders the town. It is about working with farmers who share a similar ethos, who understand land stewardship, who are doing regenerative work on a small scale.
Top left: Organic chicken liver pâté, oyster mushrooms, on sourdough toast, nasturtium capers and salsa verde | Top Right: Mini raw carrot cakes
Above: Purple cacao berry protein smoothie
The space feels like an extension of Ione’s other life as a visual artist. Books available for customers to browse cover nutrition science, fermentation and gut health, whilst a piano squeezes under the shelves. Someone will come in and play at lunchtime soon. This lateral thinking keeps Hippo from being too earnest and preachy, so that you don’t feel obliged to don a sackcloth outfit to attend. Those Maitake tempura mushrooms, battered in gluten-free vegan batter, are one of the most popular dishes. They sit alongside raw cakes that contain no dairy, no refined sugar, no oven time and yet taste like something worth ordering twice.
Moretonhampstead is not the obvious location. A small rural town on Dartmoor’s edge that, like most English villages, is emerging from an idea of itself that is now evolving into something else with the help of people like Ione. An old pub turned naturopathic bistro is not an obvious fit. But people are coming. Some travel considerable distances. The Chinese New Year event sold out. Fermentation workshops draw interest, with Ione reporting that the people who do walk through the door are genuinely lovely and curious rather than hostile.
What she is trying to do is offer an alternative to the binary choice between convenience and cost. The rise of weight-loss drugs has only sharpened this argument. People are taking medication to suppress appetite without considering what they are eating in the reduced amounts they can manage. The focus, Ione argues, should be on nutrient density.
Hospitality in Britain is starting to shift. Not everywhere, not quickly, but it is happening. People are tired of feeling stuffed, with many wanting to feel restored rather than simply full. Hippo represents one version of what that shift might look like. Not a wholesale rejection of pleasure but a recalibration and conscious recognition that eating well does not require monkish self-denial.
Brought up in South Hams, Ione has lived around Drewsteignton for over two decades, having moved out from London in her twenties. She knows the area, knows that trends take longer to arrive this far west. But Dartmoor attracts a particular kind of person. People who care about land, about their relationship with the natural world and who are more likely to understand why the quality of the soil matters.
She is not a fist-shaking evangelist. The tone at Hippo is welcoming, with the information there if you want it. Little handwritten annotations pointing out the anti-inflammatory properties of certain ingredients set the educational process as one by osmosis rather than instruction. Running a restaurant that refuses to compromise on ingredient quality while keeping prices accessible is challenging, with Ione developing new recipes, waitressing and handling the managerial side. But every time someone orders the raw cakes and cannot quite believe they have not been near an oven, every time a customer with multiple food intolerances finds they can eat almost everything on the menu, the point is being made.
Food is information. It talks to your cells, influences how you feel, not just in the next hour but over the coming months. Hippocrates understood it 2,500 years ago. In Moretonhampstead, Ione Rucquoi is doing her part to bring that understanding back into the mainstream.
