A Taste of Scilly
By Clare Hargreaves
Scilly is not just about boats, birds and beaches, although of course it has all of those in spades. The archipelago, with its amazing food from porcelain-white crab to salt, native-breed beef and clotted cream, looks after the belly handsomely too. Whether you buy direct from producers, or feast on their bounty in the islands’ restaurants, cafes and pop-ups, Scilly’s food experiences are as magical as its turquoise bays and slow-lane atmosphere.
Flying into St. Mary’s? How about a just-baked apple strudel inside a pint-sized harbour-front cafe that doubles up as a hairdressers? Wags dub it The Hairy Strudel (its official name is Strudel in Town) and it’s run with German efficiency by Bavaria-born Sabine Schauldolph. As you watch the bobbing boats, top your strudel with as much clotted cream - from neighbouring St. Agnes - as you dare.
If that’s not different enough, try dining inside the Post Office around a former sorting table that doubles up as a museum. Yes, you read correct - the glass-topped table houses Post Office logs and first-day covers dating back to the 1930s. Peruse them while Euan Rodger and wife-sub-postmaster Lindsay of Tanglewood Table cook you and up to seven companions a three-course dinner which might kick off with crab cakes using local Tegen Mor crab, followed by pan-fried John Dory with Scillonian lobster cream or Westcountry beef fillet with truffle mash. Tanglewood also sells ready meals made from local ingredients, and deli goodies including its own Pink Gin, custom-blended on St. Agnes.
Crab also takes centre stage at Juliet’s Garden - and its ringside harbour views are equally delicious. This old-timer is a 20-minute walk along the coast path from Hugh Town, providing the added bonus of helping you drum up an appetite. Crab sandwiches on the terrace are the lunchtime must-eat, but at dinner, tuck into the chowder that chef Nick Visser brought with him when he moved here from Penzance.
Scilly is no Padstow, so don’t expect celebrity chefs or stars (although the ones in its pristine skies are spectacular). But formal dining and tasting menus are there for the special occasions, and they’re good. Honey-stoned St. Mary’s Hall hotel in Hugh Town does a punchy crab linguine (using Scillonian crab, naturally) and shows equal integrity in the sourcing of its meat, from owner Clifford Freeman’s Gloucestershire farm. St. Mary’s fanciest high-end restaurant, though, has to be the one nestled inside the bowels of the 16th-Century Star Castle on its hill-top garrison; tour Scilly’s well-stocked larder with anything from duck from nearby Salakee Farm to lobster caught by owner Robert Francis. Robert also produces wines from his vineyard at Holy Vale, in the heart of the island, and if you book in advance you can lunch on his lobsters among the vines.
For casual eating and views that make the soul sing, it’s hard to beat the Surf and Turf Burger at The Beach, a shabby-chic hut teetering over Porthmellon Beach; or the Mediterranean-style tapas on the Taste of Scilly menu at Dibble and Grub, on Porthcressa Beach. For a taste of inland St. Mary’s, hike to Longstone Cafe which combines bunkhouse accommodation with a cafe serving homemade cakes on vintage china; co-owner Colin Jenkins is a fisherman, so the place also runs regular lobster feasts. The newest kid on St. Mary’s culinary block is On The Quay, ingeniously fashioned out of recycled timbers above the harbour offices on the quay from where inter-island launches depart. Dig into its simple dishes at tables crafted from scaffolding planks and poles, or bask on the balcony outside.
Many of Scilly’s dynamic food entrepreneurs are based on the off-islands, where they have ample shoreline or land to ply their trade. A few steps up from the quay at Bryher, for instance, you’ll find the shop of Island Fish, run by the Pender family who have been fishing forever. While the rest of us are groping for our first morning cuppa, Amanda is already picking the crab and lobster caught by her brother and 18-year-old son. On Thursday evenings Amanda’s mum dishes out seafood paella on the verandah, at £8 a plate. “We want to make seafood accessible,” says Amanda who also supplies the superb Hell Bay hotel and its pop-up Crab Shack. “Often people perceive it as a luxury, but it doesn’t have to be expensive.”
Once you’ve had your fill of shellfish, stock up on just-picked tomatoes and other veg from the honesty stall at Hillside Farm, which also produces asparagus, strawberries, Red Devon beef, and Bryher Bangers from its Saddleback pork. Graham and Ruth Eggins, who took over the 40-acre Duchy-owned farm in 2015, are passionate about working in harmony with nature, so use seaweed and animal manure as fertilisers. Or as Graham puts it, “We get the animals to work for us.” See how it’s at one of their Open Farm Days.
Neighbouring Tresco may be privately owned but it’s not without foodie fun. On Tuesday afternoons, you can buy direct from the producers at a Farmer’s Market on the harbour - look out for the Eggins, Penders, and Clare Yeandle, wife of Tresco’s farm manager, who makes a sublime butter sultana cake. And if you visit during the Taste of Scilly Festival (see below), there are pop-ups at The Flying Boat bistro, each course cooked by a different island chef. Seafood obviously dominates but make room too for Tresco’s own Limousin-Red Devon beef.
On St. Martin’s, the highlight for me has to be the convivial Seven Stones inn, recently given a new lease of life by Dom and Emily Crees. If their live music sessions don’t get your pulse racing, the dreamy views will and either way, you’ve an excuse to work your way through the different brews created by Ales of Scilly on St. Mary’s.
But it’s Atlantic-lashed St. Agnes that steals the show in terms of food experiences. Although the island is just one mile long, it’s incredible what edibles that little mile manages to yield - as resident Piers Lewin, who’s pretty much survived on them for the past 20 years, has documented in his newly-published An Island Food Mile.
Naturally there’s seafood from the island’s pristine waters, plus eggs and apple juice which you can sample while imbibing the rugged beauty of Santa Warna cove from the terrace of the cafe inside the old coastguards’ cottages. (At night, the place morphs into the top-notch High Tides restaurant.) Amble around the island’s western coast (forage blackberries as you go) and you’ll meet the Jersey cows belonging to Troytown Farm which turns their lusciously creamy milk into ice-cream, yoghurt, butter and cream. (Arrive at teatime and watch them being milked two by two.) Troytown’s standout ice-cream flavour is rose geranium, created from island-grown plants which are also used to flavour one of the gins produced by Aiden Hicks at nearby Westward Farm. As sublime food adventures go, it’s hard to better a glass of Aiden’s rose geranium gin while watching the sun set over Samson. Heaven.
