If Point Break was remade in the British Isles, Temple, in the surfer’s paradise of Bude, is exactly where Bodhi and co would meet to swap gnarly yarns. There’s no preciousness or posturing here: just very good, slightly California-ified food making the most of the local bounty. Brunch runs from 11-3 and features a few of the usual signifiers (hello again, eggs on sourdough toast) but also plenty of attention-grabbing variations on the theme (hello, beef shin lasagne as a side). Dinner is a £25 set menu and is even more of a showcase for the farmers, fishermen and growers who supply Temple with impeccable produce year-round.

Not, strictly speaking, a restaurant and not, strictly speaking, in Boscastle. Lola’s is instead a meal delivery service operated by former P Franco and Clove Club chef Tim Spedding and his partner Louise Rødkjær, available across a large swathe of north Cornwall. The semi-regular local delivery menu is a showcase for a style of cooking that falls somewhere between “restaurant” and “home” modes, but which is no less delicious for that: snacks and salads are bright, uplifting affairs; main courses and puddings pack a little more substance but never stray into stodginess. One of the area’s quirkiest (and most delightfully presented) dining experiences.

Rick Stein rules Padstow like a benevolent mafioso. This is his town, so much so that his smiling avuncular likeness can at times feel inescapable. The Seafood Restaurant is probably the best advertisement in the area for submitting to a seafood splurge: there’s scarcely a big name — Porthilly oysters, fruits de mer platter, whole dover sole, lobster thermidor — that doesn’t feature at some point on the menu, so it’s eminently sensible to just sit back and let Stein and co play the hits. But there are also more globally inspired dishes — lobster risotto, Indonesian seafood curry, Singapore chilli crab — for those looking to be a little more adventurous with their crustacea, suggesting that even after decades of dominance Stein is still finding ways to keep things interesting.

The best place for coffee in the area also comes with one of its best views, at local hero Origin’s Porthleven cafe that looks out on to its gorgeous trinket of a harbour. The Cornish roaster has since made a serious impact on London’s coffee scene, but home is where the heart is, and Harbour Head’s people and place watching is second to none.

A rare exception to the normally reliable rule that good food and heartbreaking views don’t mix, this out-of-the-way café overlooks one of the UK’s most beautiful expanses of beach. And yet locals and tourists brave the borderline-impassable hill down — pro tip: walk, don’t drive — as much for the Hut itself as the sea and sand. A buzzy 2018 cookbook gives a pretty good indication of what’s on offer: grilled fish and picked crab in the summer, hearty soups and stews when things start to cool off. Leave room for some enjoyably unreconstructed baked goods, especially if returning to a car parked on a double-digit incline.

After a long stint as the head chef of Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Cornwall, Andy Appleton opened his first namesake restaurant near Padstow in 2016. In 2019, he relocated to the heart of Fowey, bringing his Italian-inspired approach to bear on the best of what the area had to offer. Fresh pastas have earned rave reviews, as has a drinks list that leans heavily on Amari, spritzes and 10 different varieties of Negroni. An on-site deli is well worth a look for anyone looking to whip up an Italian feast a casa.

Sister restaurants that lend a breeziness to Spanish and Italian cooking respectively, Pintxo and Bufala are yet more evidence that Fowey has as good a claim as anywhere to the title of Cornwall’s new gourmet capital. Neither are attempting to reinvent the wheel, but the raw ingredients — buffalo mozzarella, Roman-style pizza bases, a whole host of Spanish embutidos — are top notch, and menus are written with a real flair for enticing combinations. It is a hardy soul who can resist the allure of a spider crab and saffron croquette, or a pot of pesto “for crust dipping.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, given their general modishness, both places are no reservations, but this makes them both an excellent spot for a pre-dinner snack en route to one of Fowey’s heavier hitters, and a back-pocket wildcard for when those heavier hitters shut up shop for the season.

This isn’t the place to find the best Cornish pasty in Cornwall, because that place doesn’t exist. But it is certainly somewhere to find a very good Cornish pasty, right up there in the pantheon alongside Ann’s and the increasingly ubiquitous Philps’. The filling is generous and not without its own undeniable charms, but the real USP here is the pastry, so pliable and rich that even the crimped part of the crust — according to foundational myth, good only for use as a handle — is a treat in its own right. Jaded pasty enthusiasts will also find a few new spins on the familiar formula to arouse their curiosity here, not least the striking mackerel, horseradish and pea number which is only available on Fridays.