There are few better spots in the South West at which to drink than our terrace above the sea (see below). This is as good as it gets. When the weather’s less clement, there’s no disgrace in kicking back on the sofas on the sun deck looking out to sea. We’ve a terrific bar running the length of the restaurant open all day every day or, for maybe 7 months of the year you can join the queue at our Crab Shack.
And while we hope the wine list is a decent read for those interested, we’ll always stay true to our primary function as a place to meet and wile away the hours with friends and family, with a drink in hand. The bar is there as much for those that live here as it is for the county’s visitors.
The Garden
The prize awaiting you at the bottom of our palm-fringed garden: an uninterrupted panoramic of the watery horizon, with St. Clement’s Isle plonked front and centre and the chug-chug of Newlyn’s fishing boats floating through the air.
Deep blue and tempting on a good day, ominously dark and spectacularly wild on a bad day. Whether necking a glass of rosé from The Crab Shack or cuddling a cappuccino in the Sun Lounge, you’ll not take your eyes off the water below.
The Crab Shack
Halfway down the garden, our little outside bar & kitchen rose from the remains of a depository of near-finished cans of paint (from Ty Mawr Lime, for what it’s worth), broken chairs and outdated signs. Perfect for minimising the distance from the terrace for a refill.
Open every day from mid-morning until sundown for drinks and food of a simpler hue than the restaurant inside, apocalyptic weather notwithstanding, from April through deep into the Autumn.
Genuine hospitality and superb food and wine are the hallmarks here.
Brian St. Pierre, Decanter
Bar humbug
What do we think about drink? Well here are some starters…
- Brewers take real care when making beer nowadays. So we pay it equal attention when it’s in our cellar.
- We source unsweetened apple juice from nearby Polgoon for children. They even enjoy a cup free with their menu.
- Carafes of wine are brilliant. We serve them in measures of 250ml or 375ml. It means we can open more wines and you have more choice.
- By serving decent sized spirit measures (35ml), we don’t oblige you to order doubles: better for you and better value.
Beers
In a country undergoing a real ale revolution, Cornwall has its own brewers to be proud of. So we’ve real ales, draught ales and lagers constantly revolving. Usually from any of Verdant, Harbour Brewing, Firebrand Brewing and St Ives Brewery.
We also keep a well-stocked fridge of some of the most delicious bottled IPAs, APAs, NEIPAs and any other PAs we can get our hands on. And some darker stuff at the right time of year.
Wines
Wine is sufficiently important to us for us to be named the winner of the IWC’s inaugural Restaurant Wine List of the Year category a couple of years ago, one of several awards we’ve picked up over the years in a rather grabby way.
We list up to 15 wines by the glass, many sourced from eccentrically brilliant winemakers by our suppliers, of whom you can read more on our More Wine page.
Non-Alc.
No alcohol? No problem. We regularly take a long hard look at what we have to offer our non-drinking drinkers, including very acceptable wine from Germany.
An alcohol-free beer in the fridge is a given anywhere these days, but we’ve now added Lucky Saint lager to our draught taps. We also list kombuchas & switchels and always have a mock-tail or two on the cocktail board.
Brandies
We buy our brandies from David Baker of Brandyclassics, who may know more about the subject than anyone else in the country, and Master of Malt.
The result is an intoxicating mixture of Armagnac, Cognac and Calvados. And for those with Blimpish tendencies, Julian Temperley sends us his Somerset Cider Brandy from further east in the West Country. Rightly very popular.
More about wine
Wine is something we approach with a serious mind and light heart.
It obsesses us and to give it its merited attention, we devote a page of our website to it, so that’s all we’ll say here.
