Devon Cafe Review: Venus Cafe, Blackpool Sands, Dartmouth

I was a guest at Venus Cafe at Blackpool Sands near Dartmouth.  The location is stunning.  The privately owned beach is immaculate and the rather grey sky revealed some sunshine and blue sky.   The beach has been in the same family for 400 years and is a wonderful place.

The beach is golden, the sea is blue and the red cliffs are covered in trees and vegetation.  It is a great place to walk, laze, do water sports (surfing, sea kayaking, swimming...)

or eat....

The inside of the cafe at Blackpool Sands cafe is relaxed and large and has great views of the beach through the huge windows and doors.  This place is licensed for weddings - that would be incredible.  What a wonderful venue to get married: plenty of parking, space inside and outside, great food, and that view!

The food was plentiful and great tasting.  There was a huge emphasis on locally-caught fish, shellfish plus some delicious Eversfield steak too.  The owner, Michael, really respects the environment and has more than a vested interest in the whole venture - his wife owns the beach.  The magnificent beach.  Dogs are allowed on the beach from 1 November until late March.

The John Dory was served 'en papillote' and was very tasty.  I loved the delicately seasoned crab crostini and the crab bisque for starters.  The sticky toffee pudding was also delicious.

Venus also has takeaways scattered around the South Devon coast: Bigbury-on-Sea, East Portlemouth, Tolcarne and Watergate Bay in Cornwall.  There is also a Venus cafe at Dartington.  They are a 'small, local' chain that I thoroughly recommend.               

Review: Archies Loft, Coverack, Cornwall. Pizza with a view

When staying in Coverack, The Lizard we always try to make time to pop into Archies Loft.  It is owned by Roskillys the local ice cream family, and they basically sell freshly made cookies, pizzas when they are ready and ice cream.  There is no indoor seating, but a couple of tables and chairs outside to sit and munch on your homemade goodies.

 The seagulls look well fed (and unusually quiet!)

I love it there.

Devon Cafe Review: The Clipper, Shaldon

Several years ago the Clipper Cafe at Shaldon used to be a little bit, shall we say, the wrong side of grotty.  Not shabby or full of character, just a bit past its sell by date.  It closed down a couple of years ago and has just opened after a serious revamp.  Wow.  They have really gone to town.  It is now enormous with outdoor seating on two levels and two really spacious eating areas inside.  So far I've only sampled a cup of tea and delicious home made heart-shaped shortbread, but it's definitely going to become a regular haunt.  I'm dreaming of eating crab sandwiches with a chilled glass of white (yep, they're licensed) in the summer on the patio overlooking the Teign estuary.

Devon Cafe Owners - I Implore You.....

I'm not going to name and shame, as I think it would be a bit cruel, but today we had a pretty funny Sunday lunch in a South Devon cafe attached to a farm shop.

The seven of us were seated in a quarter full cafe.  My 11 year old nephew wanted a Full English Breakfast and it was 12 noon.  We were told politely that sorry, they stop serving them at 11:30.  This is par for the course for some places and totally fine (although I wonder why - is it out of concern for our arteries? or because they want us to choose a pricier dish?  I'm no chef, but perhaps the frying / grilling thing makes it difficult to combine with making lunch food?)

My daughter wanted the child's burger (supplied by the Farm Shop, a mere five metres away.)

'Sorry, we've run out of burgers.'

O-Kayyyyy.  The whole table glanced at the butcher's counter within our line of vision, but were too polite to say anything.

'I'll have an omelette,'  requested my mother-in-law, 'they're really nice here.'

'Sorry, we've run out of eggs and we don't get a delivery until Tuesday.'

What? At this point all four adults couldn't help but laugh and point out the farm shop produce that was nearly within grasping distance.  Surely they sell eggs in there?  The waitress was adamant that there would be no omelettes for lunch until Tuesday.  Raised eyebrows all round....

Then.....my order arrives and it's wrong, and my daughter's drink and nephew's teacake don't arrive.  In fact we had all finished our lunch by the time the mythical teacake finally made an appearance.  After asking for it THREE times.  I think it took 35 minutes for them to toast a teacake.

The owner - manager (?) asked if everything was OK.  He was embarrassed to hear about the egg and burger situation, apologised profusely and before we left, pressed a pack of eight burgers and half a dozen eggs into our hands as an apology.  May as well have said 'Our waitress is useless, the chef's just been fired, better go cook it yourself.'

Devon Cafe Owners, I implore you, please train your staff and pay them more!


Empower them. So if necessary they can think for themselves and, for example, go and buy some more vital ingredients.

Customer service skills are SO important.  If the food and atmosphere are half-decent and the waiting staff are friendly and helpful, the punters are really happy and will return.  Some Devon waiting staff look like startled rabbits. We didn't really mind that things were going wrong - a sincere apology, a smile, an offer of an alternative dish - pretty simple stuff that would have been appreciated.

A bad day for the cafe? Fair enough, things don't always run perfectly. We all saw the funny side of it, but I won't be hurrying back.  For all the great experiences I have in South West cafes, these crappy occurrences are still all too frequent.

Paignton, Devon: The Boathouse Cafe Review

Preston seafront was looking lovely on 9 Jan 2011.  The sea looked mirror calm and the rare appearance of the sunshine had strangers stopping to remark on it to each other.

My daughter and I went for a stroll along the waterfront and then decided it was time for hot chocolate and tea.  I had heard that The Boathouse was a decent cafe, but I was a little put off by this:

Well, it's out-of-season in Devon and I guess businesses need to drum up custom, but still....

Despite cheery greetings from the waiter, an overpowering stench of bleach, peeling paintwork and filthy sticky bits under the wooden table slats made me realise that this place must be primarily a Fri / Sat night bar rather than a gourmet cafe hangout.

The morning pastries didn't look very appetising under their cellophane wrappers so we had tea and a hot chocolate with all the trimmings.  Except one.

I'm not keen on tea in a glass (unless I'm in Spain or France where I don't care cos I'm on holiday), but I really do care about getting a carton of UHT milk with my tea.  Yuk.  That's what I would expect at a motorway service station or.....I'm not sure where....on a budget airline, but not in a beachside cafe that has a fully functioning fridge and everything.

This cafe was not really my sort of place at all.  The UHT did it for me. It was out-of-season and needing a bit of a revamp  - it looked lovely outside, so that's where we went!

Sorry, Boathouse, get well soon!

New Teignmouth Cafe - twentysix

We mourned the loss of the Michaelmas Goose cafe in Teignmouth - we loved the Goose's relaxed, bustling vibe with super-cheery waitresses and a couple of sofas and magazines - you felt you could go there on your own and just chill and eat cake.  It closed down in the summer and we now have twentysix in its place.  I am a little cynical about calling a place by a word-number - it's not too snappy and people don't automatically know what you're talking about.  As this is owned and run by a really good chef, Denise Tarriela, I would have preferred it to be called something more personal and showing its high quality home-cooking credentials.  It's also hard to find on the internet - this is their website, but I had to go via Tripadvisor to find it.

That is all the negative stuff I have to say!  
What a lovely place and what attention to detail.  My tea (pear and caramel tea - sounds weird but tasted delicious) arrived with an egg timer and a request to let it brew for three minutes.  I love that kind of gimmick.  The two of us ordered 'Croques' - his was pear and blue cheese on granary bread and mine was brie, crispy bacon with fig relish on white topped with aged Gruyere.  Both were £6.95 which sounds a little high for a sandwich (especially in Teignmouth), but they were full of excellent quality ingredients and presented well with a delicious green salad dressed with lemon oil, proper crisps and aioli.  I enjoyed every mouthful and can highly recommend a visit.  


I gawped at the cakes but didn't have time for one - they are all homemade and look quite incredible - definitely posh restaurant standard and a little bit different: New York baked cheesecake, a beautiful iced blueberry cake and Valrhona chocolate brownies plus the amazing pear, pistachio and creme anglaise cake - I want one of those!

They are open 9-5:30 every day, plus they serve evening meals as special bookable events at weekends - the cafe is holding New Orleans Cuisine and Jazz evenings this weekend )19-21 Nov with delicious items such as Drunken Prawns with Cajun Butter Sauce, Blackened Fillet of Marlin and Chocolate Pecan Pie.  There is also a Thanksgiving meal on 25 Nov, a Local Game evening on 27th Nov and Christmas events too.

Polpeor Cafe, The Lizard, Doughnut with Clotted Cream

This is my guilitiest pleasure in the whole world.  The Most Southerly Cafe in England is Polpeor Cafe, perched on the clifftop at the point of The Lizard in Cornwall.  They serve all sorts of wicked goodies, including the Cornish Heava Cake (full of fruit and doughy).  My sinful indulgence is the freshly fried doughnuts served hot with strawberry jam and a huge dollop of clotters on the top.  This is the most calorific food imaginable and should really only be consumed by Michael Phelps and marathon runners.  And me.

This is their knickerbocker glory, conjured up by visiting fairies:

The views from this cafe are awesome.  Sitting here is a real spiritual tonic - you feel renewed by the sea air and the expanse of ocean - it's also quite exciting feeling that at any point you might be the MOST southerly person on the English mainland.  The dramatic cliffs slope down to white-flecked turquoize waters (if you're lucky enough to be there on a sunny day).  From the cafe seating area you can sight the rare chough (similar to a crow, with a red beak and feet) that first started renesting within a few hundred yards of the cafe a couple of years ago.  There are currently thought to be eight of them.  Twitchers with binoculars abound.  Seals are frequent visitors to the waters below and we have spotted them several times while tucking into doughnuts and knickerbocker glories.  One day when we got down to the beach after a trip to the cafe, the seal approached us like a friendly dog - he was as curious about us as we were about him - sadly, no pictures!

Michaelmas Goose Cafe, Teignmouth - Revisited!

I posted a review of the lovely Michaelmas Goose Cafe on 25 May 2010, but forgot to take pictures of the cake.  This was a convenient excuse to pop in there today with my kids and buy some more cake (just so I could take pictures of course).  The chocolate cake (£2.85) and the chocolate brownie (£2.50) were as heavenly as usual.  And the huge pot of Earl Grey for one went on for ever and ever....cafes as they should be.

The best cafe in Teignmouth?  I think so.

Michaelmas Goose Cafe, Teignmouth - friendliest cafe in Devon?

Popped in for coffee and chinwag with lovely L at The Michaelmas Goose Cafe‎. The waitresses here always seem happy to see customers and are so friendly, it's just an all round feel good experience.

There are two weeny seats outside in the sea air (and sunshine today) and plenty more inside.  They support local food suppliers, brew Fairtrade coffee, use Riverford Organic milk and make all their cakes themselves.  I can recommend the squidgy raspberry and apricot cake (served warm) and their divine chocolate brownie.  Seriously dark, chocolatey and with no nuts (bonus).

And I went for a brief stroll along the seafront afterwards.

NB it's a sunny day and look how empty the beach is!

The Michaelmas Goose, 26 Regent Street, Teignmouth TQ14 8SJ 01626 879 000

As We Were Dining In St Ives....

...we had to go to Porthminster Beach Cafe, or Porthminster Restaurant as it's now known.  We only phoned them the evening before to make a table reservation (which given the popularity of the restaurant was a bit foolish).  They only had outside tables remaining.  The weather forecast was poor, but they reassured me that there was a retractable roof and outside heating if it happened to rain.  Hmmm, we thought, that's fine, but we're parking at J and J's house in Carbis Bay and after a 3/4 mile walk in the rain, we may not be entirely happy to be eating outside.  We are also aware that the restaurant has the reputation for being a bit on the pricey side: we wanted to enjoy our treat, not feel miserable and cold. 

Well, as it happened, the wonderfully fickle English weather turned out to be like this:

An absolutely stunning day of sunshine and blue sky.  Along with the beach cafe at Byron Bay, Australia, I would be happy to eat at the Porthminster every day of the year.  Unfortunately we weren't beachside as we had made a late table reservation, but  the view of the sea is still wonderful. It's a cliche, but the quality of the light really is different in St Ives.  The staff are all young, trendy and sporting ridiculous-for-May tans.  They're also welcoming and friendly which doesn't always go hand in hand with the previous description.  

I tried a glass of Polgoon Raspberry Aval as an aperitif.  Looked very pretty - it's a Cornish 'champagne-style' cider infused with raspberries.  I think they throw in the 'champagne-style' so they can double the price of it, however it was very pink and summery.  I prefer this to English wine - our cider is better than our wine is ever going to be.

 So after our 3/4 mile coastal path walk and quick construction of sandcastles on the beach, we all chose......fish and chips!  They really were the business.  The children were delighted with the food and declared it the 'best fish and chips ever'.  The chips are mixed with fried garlic cloves, chopped rosemary and plenty of flakes of sea salt.  The fish is perfectly offset by the crispest and lightest batter I've ever experienced.  Served with a wedge of lemon, freshly made tartare sauce and a shot glass of white balsamic vinegar.  (Would be quite funny if you tried to down that in one.)   Looking at these pictures is making my mouth water all over again.

Posh fish and chips.

We went and raided the fudge shops of St Ives for dessert.  Porthminster has a local reputation for being expensive, but I disagree.  For two fish and chips, two child sized fish and chips, one glass of Polgoon, one Peroni, a tea, coffee, salad and bread, the bill came to £50.  I would rather eat here once a year than have a years worth of average or substandard fish and chips that many places provide.

The only problem: we didn't meet a man with seven wives, kids, sacks, cats, kits which left us all a tad disappointed...