Whilst we are enjoying this glorious sun through the window from inside the restaurant and behind the stoves, the person who is making the most of it at the moment is Danny, our expert caring for the kitchen gardens. Popping down to the garden last week seemed like a perfect excuse for me to take in some fresh Cornish air and see how the vegetable-offspring were getting on.

With local produce at the heart of what we offer at the restaurants, it makes perfect sense to grown our own ingredients just down the lane from RNO and Outlaw’s in Rock. This desire led us to setting up a couple of small plots in Porthilly and Trebetherick, where the sea breeze and slightly sandy soils definitely give an advantage, with an aim to eventually supply as many of our own vegetables and herbs as possible. Having started the process in the winter with endless weeding, digging over and reorganising, Danny has seen the gardens in all conditions, and so fully deserves this wonderful heat and the cloudless blue skies we are experiencing on the North Coast at the moment.

Our Porthilly garden is located right out in the open fields and Trebetherick in a lovely open space, so our greedy rabbit neighbours are also keeping an eye on how things are progressing, naturally being huge fans of fantastic local produce. However, Danny now has a crack-system and is very hot on securing the gates and maintaining the barracks so that we can keep all the goodies for our guests!

Being in the early stages, he is still testing the waters and seeing Read more

I hate to spark jealousy but we experienced the most beautiful few days of glorious sunshine earlier this week here on the North Coast of Cornwall. The golden sand on Rock Beach is shimmering and so guests are striding out for long fresh walks in the mornings and taking the daytime foot-ferry across to cycle the Camel Trail from Padstow to Wadebridge: the perfect way to work up an appetite for dinner!

Here in Restaurant Nathan Outlaw our seafood tasting menu is looking fantastic. The fish are coming in from Looe, Port Isaac and Porthilly looking stunning; gleaming and bright eyed. We are proud that our own vegetables are now starting to spring up – we have spring onions, herbs and leeks now from our kitchen gardens in Porthilly, Trebetherick and even in Nathan’s own patch with radishes, snap peas, broad beans and potatoes currently ‘brewing’ in the ground. The menu’s delicate flavours take you through from Seaweed Cured Salmon with a Chilled Mushroom Broth and Port Isaac Crab alongside Pickled Kohlrabi, through to Cod with Wild Garlic Tartare Dressing with a finale dessert of Passion Fruit and Coconut Ice Cream Sandwich. As ever, the way the fish will be presented on the menu is considered day by day as it comes in and dishes are tweaked depending on what treasures the catch brings. Like people, no two fish are ever exactly the same and therefore individual attention is paid to each when filleting and preparing.

While Chris and his team have been kept busy, this week Damon challenged Stephi, Julia and I with a blind wine tasting. For this, we taste Read more

Happy New Year! Can we still say that!? We are fully in the swing of things again in Cornwall after the annual closure in January and it is great to be back with the family in Restaurant Nathan Outlaw. We are keeping busy in the restaurant as Cornwall creeps out of winter with the hillsides remaining a luscious green, daffodils still bobbing their golden heads and the trees soon to be catching up with bursting buds in the next few months.

As a team we are refreshed and happily still regaling each other with holiday stories. When this industry is also your passion, it seeps into all areas of your life and so when planning a ‘break’ the ideal activity tends to be trying new foods, different dining experiences and seeing how other cultures do what we do every day. And of course, given that it is January, chasing the sun around the world.

I found my blue skies in Barcelona and California this year. In stark contrast to the busy but really beautiful city break of Barcelona, I got back to the sea in America, spending two weeks driving up the classic Highway One from Los Angeles via San Francisco to Sonoma. It was an unforgettable trip taking in scenery which was just stunning – very much like an extreme version of Cornwall! Waking up to enormous Redwood trees, a gushing river or blissfully peaceful beach was the perfect way to experience the county, and naturally it involved hearty eating…it might be almost rude not to try everything?!

I visited a couple of wineries in Read more

My favourite time of year is well under way! Cornwall is so beautiful in the winter and while we are devoid of ANY SNOW we are all still feeling very merry in the restaurants.

All it takes to get in the mood is a lovely fresh walk on the coastal path with the invigorating wind behind you, looking out over the estuary to Padstow harbour where the Christmas lights are twinkling.  It’s enough to make anyone make a grab for the Christmas jumper and dance around with a glass of mulled wine. Perfectly normal festive behaviour.

Our chefs are also getting in the spirit with the seasonal winter vegetables on the menu to accompany the fresh fish that is coming in from the inspirational fishermen who are still going out on the boats. They are bringing us bream, mackerel, john dory and monkfish to be scaled, filleted and prepared. To go with these we have lovely earthy mushrooms, cabbage and Jerusalem artichoke which are flourishing at the moment. Additionally our wonderful Rock leeks we are all obsessed with this year due to their fantastic quality are still wowing guests with the monkfish on the tasting menu!

In the restaurant we are enjoying seeing some familiar faces who also love the North Coast at this time, Read more

Part of the joy of dining out for me is that someone else handles the ‘messy’ stage, the part when a fish is transformed from being very much alive in the sea to not quite so alive, miraculously arriving in perfect fillet form, bursting with flavour. It is sheer magic.

In Nathan’s kitchen, however, you quickly learn to love the raw produce, it is too beautiful to ignore. You appreciate not only how they taste when filleted and cooked but their whole being, how they appear, their features, colours and incredible adaptations to survive in the sea. For the restaurants, the most important factors are that they are sustainably caught and how beautifully fresh they are, with their scales gleaming, eyes bright and bodies glistening with only a perfect faint oceanic aroma.

It is tough to find a better home than Cornwall if you are an English fish. The waters are mild and food plentiful due to the sustainable fishing that takes place around the coast. I am always fascinated by how all their characteristics make their existence possible in the water. Take turbot, arguably our king of the sea. As with just about all flat fish, baby turbots actually start by swimming straight as a round fish. However, as they grow they migrate to being a flat fish within their first six months, with their eyes moving to one side, enabling them to feed more easily. Not only this, it also gives them greater protection as they are camouflaged against their surroundings of rock and sea floor, allowing their predators to Read more

Another month, another supplier jolly. This time Damon, Stephi and I headed for Davidstow Creamery, just north of Camelford. I cannot quite emphasise how much I had been looking forward to this, being the ‘mouse in the house’, as Stephi says. And so, on a gloriously-stunning-Thursday we drove through gorgeous North Cornish countryside to the old RAF aerodrome which has housed a creamery since its conversion in the 1950s, with Dairy Crest taking over in 1979.

We were welcomed and introduced to Chris, the director, and were delighted to see Mark again, the Cheese Grader for Davidstow. With a lengthy involvement and passion for the industry, Mark has been kind enough to speak at our Master Class last year to present his special five year old Crackler cheese to our guests. While his job sounds like a dream to me, it does take a wealth of experience and knowledge to be able to grade each cheese in its different state every four months to monitor how it is maturing, the texture, mouth feel, taste and suitability to their market.

What sets Davidstow apart is Read more

Autumn is well under way, with Rock really embracing all of the elements! Today this means a choppy estuary as the wind whistles around us, kindly blowing out the clouds to give us wonderful blue skies – perfect for a crisp walk on our virtually empty beach, followed swiftly a cheeky warming afternoon cocktail by the fire to warm the cockles, and toes.

These choppy waters, whilst exhilarating to watch when wrapped up and cosy, do make for difficult fishing, as Calum, our wonderful and brave crustacean fisherman will vouch for! However, the cooler sea means we are seeing some wonderful quality fish come in, with larger sea bass, fresh, bright mackerel and beautiful brown crabs when the conditions permit.

In addition to showcasing these beautiful fish, Nathan’s head chef, Chris, and the kitchen team are doing a fantastic job of tweaking the menu as we see the autumnal accompaniments arrive; roasted celeriac sits alongside Read more

The prospect of dining out is such an exciting one, from the moment of finding the restaurant, even before booking, I love just looking at previous dishes, researching the ethos and the team and generally being rather nosy from a distance. In particular, viewing a sample menu tends to build the anticipation, giving an idea of what style to expect and choice of ingredients. However, if sensitive to certain foods, this can cause uneasiness regarding what will be on the menu on the night.

Whether the reason may be – from a past experience or just a natural allergy or intolerance, we completely understand there may be elements of a menu that could be daunting or unmanageable. This is an area of worry we are dedicated to removing! As a result of serving this set menu, we are very happy to accommodate any dietary requirements, adapting or creating the menu to eliminate any anxiety.

The beauty of our tasting menu is… Read more

Charlotte is the Assistant Manager in the Restaurant Nathan Outlaw front-of-house team. With a background in and fervent passion for the restaurant industry, serving fantastic food and wine in this idyllic location seemed the ideal ‘home’ when joining Nathan in 2010. She loves being fully immersed into the wonderful world of Cornwall and fresh fish, writing about the menu, visits to the suppliers and day-to-day life of Restaurant Nathan Outlaw. Click here to read Charlotte’s full bio.

In The Asparagus Garden

For around six weeks of the year, the smiles on our chefs’ faces are even wider than usual due to the fact that it the season for St. Enodoc asparagus. We are incredibly fortunate to be neighbours to the source of some of the best asparagus in the country – it grows in a picturesque field just down the lane.

This week I rose bright and early on a perfect summer morning to meet Jax, the head of this part of the family business, at the dew-kissed field (another great excuse to crack out the wellies!). As I headed down to the field the view was certainly a poignant reminder of why I fell in love with Cornwall. Straight ahead there is Daymer Bay beach backing onto the marvellous estuary, with Brae Hill sheltering on the left with the 16^th Century St. Enodoc Church, from where the company takes its name, lying slightly inland from it. Not many asparagus spears can boast such a location, with a perfect childhood growing up so close to the Camel Estuary.

Asparagus is always something to look forward to and savour, however St. Enodoc Asparagus is  exceptionally special. Jax has years of experience since starting in 1991, fully dedicate herself to these carefully selected specific varietals; growing, nurturing, cutting and delivering them personally to our kitchen. The field itself has a base of sand… Read more

There is a serious argument for this being the best job in the world. The term ‘job’ even loses its stigma here; which other environment could I be surrounded by all the things I love in life – fantastic colleagues, lovely guests, stunning food and wine, all with a backdrop of the beautiful North Cornwall coast – a magnificent combination.

This industry has no qualms about taking over your life, quite happily luring you into a world of hosting, serving, constant tweaking, tasting and generally making you fall in love with all that hospitality encompasses. Personally, I am perfectly delighted to be enticed; I was addicted from an early age and after dabbling in other fields, this was always the one niggling at my heart and so in due course, I merrily gave in and embraced it! Read more