The Seafood Restaurant, Padstow

We spent a beautiful weekend in Cornwall staying in Port Issac at the Old School Hotel, they have a great on site restaurant and the staff so helpful. Port Issac is such a TINY place and it’s not the most accessible place we have ever been as its pretty hilly but it was worth the work to visit.  The Hotel is as the name suggests an old school house so all the rooms are named after lessons – we stayed in the French room. This hotel is not actually wheelchair accessible – but it was the best we could get in the area and there was enough of us to lift in and out of the hotel steps. The hotel is actually used in the filming of Doc Martin and you can see his “house” from the show across the water, there were so many tourists about looking for spots they use for filming. It’s truly beautiful there, the photos speak for themselves hopefully – it was like being in the Med.

Padstow is just a short drive from Port Issac and actually The Seafood Restaurant was one of the reasons we actually started planning the trip. We’ve always loved Rick Stein and picking just one was really tough. We settled on the Seafood Restaurant as we thought it was the perfect balance of what we were hoping for.

We had a starter of fresh oysters with spicy sausage which was the perfect paring. The main of grilled lobster was amazing, the best lobster that we have ever had, it was so sweet tasting but meaty. We also went for one of the daily specials which was curried hake, it was such a delicious fish curry and something we really need to eat more of. We finished off with the most delicious pineapple tart tatin with coconut sorbet. It was truly a beautiful lunch and the whole atmosphere was fantastic – we only wish it was closer to home.