As we walked back from Porthminster beach to the cottage at the other end of St Ives, our lunch at Porthminster Beach Cafe sparked a simple conversation over the worst dining rooms we have ever been in. The restaurant in the Guggenheim without question, all silent and serious, where one guest asked for milk presumably in an attempt to bring on sleep, maybe The Hand and Flowers, where the close tables put us within earshot of a table of loud mouthed egocentrical arseholes, and by the same reasoning pretty much every bloggers event I’ve been to especially when the dull chat is lit-up like a football stadium by portable lamps. It’s always because of the crowd. Always because of tables who like to impose their shitty opinions or attitudes on everyone else; and Porthminster Cafe was exactly the same. Sitting on the terrace overlooking the beach with a cold glass of wine should have been the most perfectly serene lunch with my new wife, and yet here we were with the old bastard who wanted them to open a ‘cold and dry rose’ because he didn’t like the option by the glass and didn’t want to buy a bottle. Or the mother with the Hyacinth Bouquet accent telling her Cambridge Uni daughter that if she didn’t want a job she should become an influencer. Or the table of four who complain loudly that some of the options will require sides when they only wanted a cheap lunch. Only the two big gay guys with the big beards and the cute dogs are able to show any respect to the rather lovely staff. Those guys rule. I’d like to be friends with them.
In many ways the restaurant and the patrons that day show a side of St Ives that makes me love it just a tiny bit less, which is still not enough to say that we both wouldn’t run off there at a second’s notice to live by the sea. The type of tourist with a second or third or fourth home who has reached a period in life where they feel that they are above the people serving them, which may have something to do with it’s long-standing reputation as the best place in town to eat, and absolutely to do with The Times listing it as one of the ‘19 Best Places To Eat Beside The Sea In The UK’. It is pretty. Really pretty. On a vast expanse of beach with the old town arching around the corner in the distance. Three courses for £37 served one of us, whilst Sophie had lobster and chips. Two cocktails, two carafes of wine, and a bill for £157.
A starter of burrata was a nice study of sweet and sour. The burrata was fresh and delicate, with lightly pickled tomatoes, salsa verde, micro basil, and a big glug of peppery olive oil. Really good, really fresh, approachable and easy to eat. Beautifully cooked cod with olive oil mash, grilled courgettes, roasted tomato, some kind of caper salsa that pins it all together. Nothing fancy. Nothing to rewrite the classics of cooking. Just really excellent fish cooking and an understanding of when to stop.
Not sure they could get a better cook on Sophie’s lobster either. Not a hint of chewiness on the meat, just the right amount of garlic present, which is always one clove more than you think. Decent chips, too. The only thing that lets it down is the puddle of dish water coloured liquid that is a mix of the garlic butter mixed with lobster juice. It looks revolting, arguably worse in the flesh than in the pictures. Luckily dessert was pretty as a picture; a creme brûlée that riffs on the flavours of Eton Mess, maybe because a percentage of the dining room are. Loads of vanilla, dainty meringues, fresh strawberries and strawberry gel, and elderflower jelly. It’s sweet and delicious.
Service was great despite the stuff that was going on around us, and honestly they all deserve a pay rise for putting up with it. We walk back to the perfect Palais Provisions for martinis and negronis, before they let slip that they have done the drinks list for a restaurant on the front that includes five quid negronis which sorts our afternoon out. We both agree that despite the clientele we’d still both gladly go back to Porthminster Beach Cafe again, surely a sign that the stuff coming out of the kitchen is very good indeed.
8/10
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