Part of St Ives’ growing roster of hipsterfied food and drink
spots (wine bars Little Palais and St Eia are straight out of Hackney), One Fish
Street takes diners on a globetrotting food tour from the comfort
of its diminutive first-floor dining room. The tasting menu might
start with turbot and brill aguachile loaded onto tiny tacos,
before sriracha-doused tempura kale and Indian-inspired tandoori
gurnard arrive at your table. Despite Chef Bradley Monk’s
wide-ranging culinary influences, the heart of the matter is fresh
fish sourced from small, inshore dayboats. Sommelier Charlotte
ensures each course is perfectly paired, whether with some English
sparkling wine by Gusbourne, a cucumber martini or umeshu plum
sake. A simpler grillhouse menu is served on selected weeknights,
too.

Not a restaurant per se, this gourmet update on the beach shack
is a foodie mecca for seafood savants. Follow the coastal footpath
out of Portscatho to reach the buttery sands of Porthcurnick.
There, you’ll find a pale green hut where walkers are rewarded with
hearty, seasonal soups (say, a smoked haddock, bacon and clam
chowder topped with sourdough croutons and dill), pasties and
tempting cakes. From May to September, it also hosts phenomenally
popular Feast Nights – firelit, al fresco supperclubs where diners
tuck into vats of seafood paella or barbecued lobster as the wine
flows.

Step aside, Rick Stein; there’s a new star on the Cornish food
scene. Emily Scott’s nostalgic, unpretentious flavours are a breath
of fresh Atlantic air, served in a light-flooded dining room atop
Watergate Bay Hotel’s seawall. Dishes such as ray wing with brown
crab hollandaise, truffle-laced scallops and a “seaside days”
dessert of toasted-hay soft-serve and rhubarb sorbet are pure
crowd-pleasing perfection. Around running this wildly successful
restaurant, the chef has also managed to pen two beautifully
illustrated cookbooks and cater private events, from the G7 summit
in 2021 to a new wellness retreat at nearby Atlanta
Trevone.

Talk about a sea view… Adam Handling’s food waste-fighting,
fine-dining restaurant seemingly floats above Carbis Bay,
floor-to-ceiling windows flooding the space with St Ives’ famous,
artist-attracting light. Each item on the tasting menu is a
miniature masterpiece, too. Take the enigmatically named “all about
the crab”, which sees dainty tartlets of white crab meat and
horseradish nestled in a pebble-filled shell alongside a quenelle
of brown crab butter for slathering onto sourdough crumpets – a
seafood classic taken to new heights. An Asian or Italian accent is
often discernible, in dishes such as nori-wrapped cod or barbecued
squash agnolotti in a dashi broth. Be sure to sample one of the
fiendishly creative cocktails, which make use of seeds, peels and
pulps from the kitchen.