Short answer: Brixham is a working fishing port that happens to be beautiful, not a resort. The beaches are coves reached down steps rather than stretches of sand. The three best things — the harbour, the breakwater and Berry Head — are all free.
This is what separates Brixham from the rest of Torbay. The trawler fleet still lands here, the fish market still operates, and the quay is busy at hours when nowhere else is. It is not a resort keeping a few boats for the look of the thing, and that is exactly why the fish in the restaurants is as good as it is.
Set expectations. Brixham's coast is coves, not sand. Fishcombe Cove is a short coastal walk from the harbour with a café and toilets. St Mary's Bay is beautiful and over a hundred steep steps down with only one way on and off. Man Sands is three miles of single-track lane and then an uneven mile on foot. None of them is a park-and-flop beach.
Brixham is the best-value town on this coast. The harbour, with the Golden Hind replica moored in it and the coloured houses stacked up the hillside, costs nothing. The breakwater — half a mile of flat, level walkway out to a lighthouse, with benches and seals close in — costs nothing. Berry Head nature reserve, with Napoleonic fort ruins and Britain's shortest lighthouse, costs nothing.
There is even free parking at St Mary's Bay, about ten minutes' walk from the beach, which is rare on this coast.
Rockfish on the fish quay serves what the boats landed that morning with unlimited fries — the obvious choice, though at nearly £30 for fish and chips it is pricier than the pubs. The Old Market House on the quay has exceptional gluten-free provision and food that is cooked rather than reheated. Eventide on the quay is chef-owned with a changing menu and the highest rating in town.
Walk the breakwater. It is flat, it is half a mile, the view back over the marina to the town is the best in Torbay, and there are usually seals.
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