With summer on the wane, Alex Larman finds St Ives (the Cornish one) has plenty to offer beyond the beach — starting with a world-class gallery and ending with some of the finest seafood in the South-West…
It comes as a slight surprise to find that Britain contains three separate places called St Ives: one in Cambridgeshire, one in Dorset and the last, and perhaps most famous, in Cornwall. It also comes as a faint embarrassment to discover that they are easily confused with one another, and a couple of restaurant reservations had to be cancelled when I realised that I had confused my holiday destination (the Cornish St Ives) with somewhere quite different (the Cantab St Ives). All of which meant that I arrived at my destination feeling, if not flustered, a sense that this was not going to be a predictable week.
I had travelled down on GWR, which is in many regards Britain’s most reliably old-school train operator, still boasting things like a dining car (on selected services) and the Night Riviera service, which transports you from London to Penzance by night. I did not partake of either the first or the latter, but instead managed the five and a half hour journey or thereabouts from Oxford to St Ives in first class, which made for a comfortable, if at times fraught, journey: the extreme heat made for delays and hairs-breadth changes that meant that by the time we arrived, grateful for the complimentary snacks and non-alcoholic drinks, we were in need of a week’s r ‘n’ r.
Which is exactly what you find in St Ives. Traditionally home to artists of the calibre of Barbara Hepworth, Ben and Winifred Nicolson and Alfred Wallis, it has long enjoyed a second life as a holiday destination of choice for the demanding metropolitan, meaning that old-school fishermen’s pubs and undistinguished backstreet spots have given way to places serving expensive natural wines and the very finest seafood. This has, in turn, led to a tension between three different kinds of people: those who have been here for time immemorial, those who moved down a few years ago to escape the rat race and those, like us, who are merely popping by for a week in the summer to soak up the sea and sunshine.
As someone who is chronically unable to tan and who has a deep loathing of the pervasive qualities of sand, spending a great deal of time by the beach was not an especially appealing idea. So the first thing I wanted to do was to soak up the cultural offerings of the town, which are, thankfully, world class. The major offering here is, of course, Tate St Ives, which I had visited once before and had considered an impressive provincial gallery but very much the little sister of its London and Liverpool relatives.
Tate St Ives (photos © Kirstin Prisk)
A substantial programme of expansion and refurbishment that was completed in 2017 has turned it into a hugely impressive gallery that mixes a distinguished permanent collection, focusing on local artists, with a few impressive outliers, and a series of temporary exhibitions. When we visited, the gallery was hosting the first UK retrospective by the Lithuanian-American artist Aleksandra Kasuba, Shelters for the Senses, and it was just as beguiling as the clean white walls of the gallery, the excellent (although pricey) café and the stunning views over nearby Porthmeor beach.
It’s only a few moments from the other major cultural attraction of the town, the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, which is also run by the Tate. (A ticket can be purchased to allow for entry to both venues.) Hepworth died in grim circumstances in her home in 1975, but shortly after this time, the studio that she worked in was transformed into a museum, along with the garden. This therefore allows visitors to see both an impressive selection of her monumental sculptures, dotted around the garden, and to see where Hepworth lived and worked.
It is a splendidly peaceful place that allows enough context to understand why the pre-eminent sculptor of her time was such a big deal, but also allows a sense of having popped in for a moment while Hepworth is otherwise engaged. You half expect to see one of her trademark cigarettes burning in an ashtray: ironically enough, as a fire set off by one of those fags killed her.
All this art (and beach time, if you’re into that) is enough to work up an appetite, and St Ives now has a selection of impressive restaurants and places to drink that rival anywhere in the South-West. Be warned, however, that a couple of chi-chi spots, naming no names, offer frankly terrible value for money and are best avoided unless you’re desperate or flush. (Head instead for the excellent, old-school micropub The Pilchard Press Alehouse). But one place that is superb value and another welcome suggestion of how far the culinary scene in St Ives has come in the past decade or so is the recently opened Ardor, on Fore Street in the centre, where you are guaranteed a spectacular meal.
Under the careful watch of chef-patron Dorian Janmaat (ex-Le Manoir and The Idle Rocks), this excellent restaurant serves a variety of tapas that rank amongst some of the best I’ve ever eaten in this country. Whether it’s the smaller plates of chicken shawarma flatbread (a particular winner), chistorra sausage with garlic yoghurt, very fine jamon croquetas or pan con tomate, or larger portions of exemplary duroc pork tomahawk with garlic butter or chicken and chorizo paella, everything that you eat here is going to be absolutely splendid, accompanied by a superb white Rioja or a couple of very fine cocktails; the Amaretto Sour, in particular, was truly top notch. Portion sizes are generous – we over-ordered, which meant that we were almost replete by the time that desserts arrived, but we still managed superb crema catalana and churros, complete with a welcome glass of aged pedro ximenez sherry. It’s just like being in Andalucia, except you’re on the Cornish coast instead.
And another culinary highlight of St Ives comes in Mick Smith’s long-established and perennially popular beachfront establishment, the Porthminster Beach Café. To be honest, ‘café’ sells this very fine seafood restaurant short, which combines wonderful seaside views (try and get an outdoor table on the deck, and it’s as close as you can imagine to being in the Bahamas without leaving the country) with a carefully chosen, seafood-heavy menu.
A typical and very accomplished meal, served by charming and good-looking young staff, might begin with divine tuna tataki or equally wonderful Cornish squid with an Asian slaw on the side, and then move into monkfish, prawn and mussel curry or a particularly well-cooked piece of brill, accompanied by olive oil mash, with the whole shebang washed down with a bottle of excellent Vinho Verde. And make sure that you leave time for dessert; we had a lively discussion as to whether the peach melba soft serve or the chocolate nemesis was superior, before we decided that both were out of the top drawer and were therefore unmissable.
You leave St Ives, then, full of the glories of culture and culinary life alike, replete and sated. The town might have its oddities and eccentricities and as we found more than once, the possession of an accent that is broadly regarded as ‘London’ might result in rather huffy treatment in a few shops and cafes, but set against this, it’s a marvellous place for a break – whether at summer or any time of year – that replenishes the senses and reinvigorates the mind and taste buds alike. I cannot wait to go back again.
Getting there: GWR runs direct services from London Paddington to St Ives (usually with a change at St Erth); First Class is a worthwhile upgrade on the five-hour-plus run. gwr.com
See: Tate St Ives, Porthmeor Beach, St Ives, TR26 1TG; tate.org.uk. The Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, Barnoon Hill, St Ives, TR26 1AD; a combined ticket with Tate St Ives is available.
Eat and drink: Ardor, Fore Street, St Ives; The Pilchard Press Alehouse; Porthminster Beach Café, Porthminster Beach, St Ives, TR26 2EB; porthminstercafe.co.uk.
For more information about St Ives, including details of hotels, and to start planning your trip, please visit www.visitcornwalls.com.
