Port Isaac Restaurant Guide

“Against a backdrop of wild sea views we enjoyed small plate after small plate of stunning seafood, each one different” – Nathan Outlaw’s harbourside HQ inspired a dazzling level of satisfaction this year, with all of the numerous reports we received on it acclaiming it as an “outstanding” performer and very arguably “the best seafood and fish restaurant in the UK”. “You know everything is fresh and sourced locally and this shines through with everything they serve” in dish after “fabulously creative” dish, “beautifully presented on magnificent ceramics”. Its “impeccable but super-friendly Cornish service tops off” the “exceptional” standards.

“So small… how do they produce such great food from that tiny kitchen? Incredible!” – Nathan Outlaw’s “tiny, so quite cosy” No 2. venue sits on the quayside of this picturesque fishing village and is “just the best place” on account of food that’s “beautifully prepared and full of flavour”: “a wonderful combination of tapas-style eating and Michelin-starred cooking”.

2023 Review: “A quirky hotel and restaurant serving excellent local fish” – this whitewashed, seventeenth-century hotel in a coastal bay is “always outstanding”. Chef James Lean (appointed in 2015) oversees a menu that’s naturally fish-focused. “Friendly service and great Cornish ales” complete the picture.

“This beautifully situated Cornish pub” off the Padstow tourist trail has a pleasant location in a fifteenth-century stone building replete with a garden overlooking the local church; solid marks if little feedback this year for its open-fire cooking, and especially “good-value set lunches”.

Limited but still all-round enthusiastic feedback this year for Fred & Donna Beedles’s low-key operation, in a parade of shops away from the harbour. The menu is a two-course or three-course à la carte, whose seeming straightforwardness belies the skill of the cuisine.

2021 Review: Still a “lovely, relaxing” location, with views across the Camel estuary, but feedback at this hotel dining room has become very mixed since the departure of chef James Nathan and his illustrious predecessor, Nathan Outlaw (and the ownership of the hotel itself changed in January 2019, which “may not have helped”). Whatever the cause, while it does still have some fans, some regulars feel it’s “just not in the same class” as it was formerly.