Beach Dining
It's not every day you find opportunity to dine right on the Beach. And not just any old sort of beach, a proper sandy beach you would want to dig your toes into and build a sand castle complete with moat. A beach with beautiful, unspoilt views across to St Ives Bay and Godrevy Lighthouse. A beach with golden, caramac shades and hardly a soul on it. Bar one dog walker, one happy dog loping on the run and one lone swimmer with a mesmerising stroke-o'meter.
So to find a dining spot on such a picturesque blue flag beach, seated at the large paned observatory window seemed especially fortuitous. This was my first visit to the Porthminster Cafe restaurant and its eloquent reputation for fine seafood is there for good reason. Relaxed and welcoming, this is a handily located oasis for anyone who prefers to be Far From The Madding Crowd and is searching for 'sustainable fish' served direct from the local cornish sea.
The campaigning folk at fish2fork care deeply about preserving our planet's resources in the sea and they have nothing but high praise for the Porthminster Beach Restaurant.
This idyllic and dreamy spot has no distractions, apart from welcome rhythm of the tide, slowing down the pace of St Ives leisurely life by one more notch on the dial. The seasonal food is infused by nature and the tiny floral presentations accompanying the line caught haddock are perfected by St Ives unique natural daylight.
The locally sourced English Organic wine from Camel Valley is chilled at your table in a red plastic beachside bucket, to sum up the agreeably nonchalant mood.
Even the knitted lifeguards manning our homeward route seemed to know they were onto a good thing.
