slow food – The Extra Mile

Posted on 04/11/202404/11/2024 by The Extra Mile

THE COASTAL CAFÉ GUIDE: THE IDEAL GIFT FOR SWIMMERS, SURFERS, AND FOODIE BEACH LOVERS

Image of three copies of The Coastal Café Guide

The Coastal Café Guide gathers a huge cross-section of the best coastal cafés in Britain into one brilliant guide. For cafés by the sea, beachside eateries, and restaurants with a sea view, look no further. Upon release this summer, it quickly became an Amazon #1 hot New Release, and then a travel category #1 bestseller. Need a present for the swimmer, surfer, or seafood lover in your life? Voilà!

Who’s the guide for? Packed with surf-friendly and post-swim ready cafés, it’s for anyone looking for a small, local, independent café on the coast. It’s for those who love to stop for a coffee after going wild-swimming at the beach, it’s got cafés that make great stop-offs for coast-path walkers, and it has restaurants offering sustainable seaside dining across the land. Check out a few of our favourite coastal cafés below.

To buy The Coastal Café Guide – it makes a great gift for wild-swimmers, a wonderful Christmas present for surfers, or the perfect gift for someone planning a coast-path walk – visit our online bookshop today for single and great-value book bundle deals.

The Boathouse, Uphill, North Somerset

Gemma and Giulio have revolutionised this nautical and very dog-friendly coastal café near Uphill’s marina, lake, and touring park. A summer hot-spot, it is a short stroll from the southern end of Weston-super-Mare beach so is perfect for those seeking a café near the sea in Weston. The colourful outdoor area has a beach-striped coffee and gelato hut. Here, tropical sorbets, riotously rich gelatos (all homemade on site) and seasonal specials create dilemmas for ice cream aficionados.

The Boathouse is favoured by those with families, dogs, and bikes, as it gives onto the Brean Down Way walking and cycling route. Yachties and rowers from the local gig club also swing by for epic cakes, posh fish finger sandwiches, big breakfasts, and…did we mention the local gelato? Pick up doggie treats before hitting the beach, or climb Uphill Beacon for views across to Glastonbury Tor or the hills of Wales. An ideal café near the coast in Uphill, Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset.

The Boathouse on Facebook

The Sandy Salt Pig, Studland, Swanage, Dorset

Looking for a café on the coast right next to the sea in Dorset? Look no further. This café is a coast-path walker’s dream. “Not many stories begin with the words “I worked locally as a shepherd for 14 years…” but this one does. The Salt Pig coastal café and kiosk is well loved locally. Its founder, James, worked the coastal fields near Kimmeridge Bay and now brings the region’s distinctive flavours to the fore through The Salt Pig’s farm shops, cafés, and now The Sandy Salt Pig beach cabin: a refreshing sight for coast-path weary eyes. It’s the perfect post-swim café or food stop for beach goers.

At The Salt Pig’s farm, rare-breed pork is reared with landscape, nature, and sustainability in mind. James’s goal is for locals to connect to their landscape, to understand the benefits of farming, and to be proud of local produce. Kick your shoes off at a beachfront bench to devour a homemade sausage roll or a pulled-beef burrito before strolling along Studland’s famed beach with a Purbeck ice cream. If you’ve walked the South West Coast Path or plan to, or seek a gift for someone who’s about to, The Coastal Café Guide is ideal.

The Salt Pig on Facebook

The Beach Café, Littlehampton, West Sussex

Super popular when the sun shines, The Beach Café also has one of West Sussex’s coolest watersports hubs. Vast sea views are included, both from inside the club house and up on the rooftop. Of course we had to include it in our book of epic post-surf cafés and for wild-swimmers seeking a café on the coast.

Whether you’ve come to eat or to kitesurf, swim, paddleboard, windsurf, or wingfoil (ask about lessons and kit hire), this friendly place with its surfy vibe has it all. This coastal café was created as a place to share tales of near-misses and heroic surf saves, all fuelled by great food and drink. It is now the beach hang-out for a community that is keen to enjoy all that the ocean offers. Once off the water, head inside for surfer wraps, vegan breakfasts, stone- baked pizzas, and succulent burgers. Visit the West Beach Nature Reserve or stroll along the river Arun while in town.

The Beach Café on Facebook

The Norfolk Coffee Pedlar, Burnham Overy Staithe, Norfolk

This is a water’s-edge coffee stop-off with a difference. Sustainable coffee aficionados will love the Norfolk Coffee Pedlar. Many people pivoted in their careers in the wake of Covid…far fewer converted a trike into a mobile coffee shop. Enter Sandy and Dave. Conscious of the environment (and their stunning creek-side location), they serve coffee in beautiful hand-thrown ceramics made by local artists with no disposable cups.

If you want to relax by the shore, or walk the coast path to the beach, you can borrow (or buy) a cup. Taking the boat out to Scolt Head Island? Ferryman John will even drop the cup back for you. Here, locally roasted coffee is served alongside hunks of home-baked cake: the ginger and orange is a firm favourite. Keep your eyes on the skies as, with the Pedlar’s exposed spot, wind and rain can stop play.

The Norfolk Coffee Pedlar on Facebook

The Lookout on the Pier, Scarborough, North Yorkshire

For something a little different in a town you think you might know, head to this fantastic coastal café with its sea view and harbour view tables. Scarborough’s Lookout on the Pier is an integral part of the town’s lively, Grade II-listed working harbour. Evocative boaty sights, sounds, and authentically fishy scents accompany your stroll to this seafood restaurant’s industrial staircase. Head up and into this atmospheric first- floor space, with its striking views across working wharfs and up to the ruins of once-mighty Scarborough Castle. Chef Alex’s house special is the chowder. In fact, ‘all seafood’ is where he excels.

Secure a popular balcony table in fine weather to get involved with plates of criminally fresh oysters or moules marinières, while lobster dishes parade temptingly around on route to eager tables. The seafood platters are show-stopping. This really is an excellent seafood, seaside, sea-view dining experience. End your day with a trip to the Museum of Coastal Heritage and Geology.

The Lookout on the Pier on Facebook

The Beach House, Portobello, Edinburgh

Where to eat on the coast in Scotland? We’ve got a few great coastal cafés in Scotland in our guide, and this beachside eatery is a favourite. In its lifetime, Edinburgh’s Portobello area has made everything from glass and lead to paper and pottery. Today, its prom and award-winning beach attracts a different energy, with events from the Big Beach Busk to triathlon and volleyball meets. Near Portobello’s Sailing and Kayaking Club is The Beach House, a pretty little café with cakes and pastries arriving fresh each day from its own bakery in Leith.

The café prides itself on buying local and organic. Tables have fresh posies and the kitchen garden brims with herbs and fruits. Some end up in the best-selling Porty Smash: Portobello mushrooms, smashed avo, thyme and garlic aioli, balsamic glaze, and pine nuts (topped with an organic poached egg). Try a homemade gelato or summery sorbet, or boost your vitamin C with some local sea buckthorn.

The Beach House on Facebook

Visit our online bookshop now to discover more about The Coastal Café Guide and its 150 coastal cafés, restaurants by the sea, pubs with sea views, and dog- and family-friendly places to eat at the seaside around the coast of Britain. Bestselling foodie travel guide, The Coastal Café Guide, is available now from Printslinger. Also available as at 2024: The Farm Shop Guide, and The Extra Mile: Delicious Alternatives to Motorway Services. Buy the three-book bundle for serious savings on this tempting trio.

Posted on 11/07/202312/07/2023 by Lauracollacott

6 ORGANIC CAFES NEAR THE ROAD

Organic leaves being grown at Plaw Hatch Farm

We pride ourselves on championing some of the very best, and most considerate producers in the country, but some of them really go the extra mile when it comes to minimising their use of chemicals and nurturing nature in the process. Here are a few of our favourite cafes, restaurants and farms walking the organic talk, but for more stops featuring organic goodies, just have a look at the ‘find a stop’ section of our website and search using the ‘organic’ icon.

Helen Browning’s Royal Oak

Run by the CEO of the Soil Association, the Royal Oak has the organic ethos in its DNA. The dining pub stands at the centre of Eastbrook Farm, an organically run outfit in Wiltshire’s Marlborough Downs, and serves home-reared meat and home-grown produce. You will genuinely taste the difference in the quality of the ingredients. Mouthwatering.

Owens Coffee

The beans might not be grown on our shores, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care where our coffee comes from. Owens sure does. Committed to supplying organic beans from ethically run estates, the company walks the sustainable, nature friendly talk. That means you can rest easy when you sup on a cortado and cake on the sunny terrace.

Plaw Hatch Farm

As a proudly biodynamic, community-owned farm, Plaw Hatch is guaranteed to supply similarly organic ingredients to its café. After watching the cow milking at 4pm, head to the pantry to stock up on locally produced cheese, honey, loafs of sourdough, and veggies from the garden, and grab a coffee and cake while you’re at it.

Piercebridge Farm Shop

There are more than 2,000 organic products at this beautiful farm shop in the Durham countryside. Careful stewards of the countryside, the owners here rear cows, sheep, pigs and chickens in step with the local wildlife. Stop in to stock up on deli goods and enjoy a nice cold drink.

Arthurs Farm Kitchen Cafe at Fordhall Farm

A trail-blazer in the organic movement, Fordhall Farm ditched chemicals in its farming more than 65 years ago. Today, it’s community-owned and still true to its nature friendly ethos. The same goes for the food in Arthurs Farm Kitchen, housed in a beautifully renovated old dairy. Enjoy plates made from organic cheddar, pasture-fed pigs, and chemical-free jams.

The Prospects Trust: Unwrapped

Shelves at this socially inspired enterprise are filled with organic vegetables – many grown up the road at the charity’s own fabulous Snakehall Farm, which is committed to organic growing methods. The same ethos applies to the food available in the café, where you can grab a barista coffee and warm bake from the kitchen.

Posted on 11/11/202211/11/2022 by The Extra Mile

WHY LOCAL FOOD MATTERS

At the Extra Mile, we’re firm proponents of local food. We crow about it at every opportunity. You’ll see it plastered throughout the book. But why?

Industrial scale farming and huge supermarket supply chains have served us well in feeding the growing population, but it has come at a cost. The quest for cheaper food has meant the increased use of fertilizers, pesticides, energy, land and water. As a result, our global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss and a major driver of climate change, accounting for around 30% of total human-produced emissions.

Local food is the antithesis of this form of production. It’s produce grown within a short distance of where it’s consumed (although there’s no formal legal definition). Here are some of the benefits.

Buying locally grown food encourages small scale, nature-sensitive farming…

…and shifts away from harmful industrial monocropping. The impact on bees is just one well-documented example of the harm monocropping can wreak on nature. By contrast, farming in harmony with the local microclimate can have a restorative effect on the soils and wildlife.

It supports local farming businesses and gives back to the community

Money spent with growers and neighbouring cafes and restaurants keeps money close to home, instead of going to faceless national businesses. That develops agriculture and hospitality in the area and keeps communities and economies thriving. The New Economics Foundation estimated that for every £1 spent in the local food network, £3.70 is generated in social, economic and environmental value. Food festivals (such as the eatFestival shown in the two images below) are a great way to discover some of your very local producers.

It has lower food miles

In the UK we import around half of our food. Buying local means crops don’t have far to go once they’ve been harvested. Without the need to drive crops long distances between where they’re grown and consumed, the carbon footprint shrinks, reducing the impact of your lunch.

It’s tastier and more nutritious

Crops can only be grown in accordance with the prevailing weather, which means local food is largely seasonal. Produce that ripens or matures naturally is served fresh, which means it’s tastier and more nutritious than food that is picked early (or out of season) and ripened artificially on its journey to shops.

If shopping locally, choosing food that hasn’t travelled far, and supporting smaller-scale and often independent food businesses is what gets you out of bed of a morning, dip into The Extra Mile. The guidebook is packed with small local cafés and offers viable alternatives to monotonous, motorway service station food, and disappointing forecourt food. Browse our Venue Finder here or buy the most up-to-date version of the guidebook for your own glovebox or that of a friend today at The Extra Mile’s online bookshop.

Posted on 07/09/202207/09/2022 by The Extra Mile

EAT:FESTIVALS – TRULY LOCAL FOOD

Man from Ginger Beard Pickles and Preserves holding a jar of pickle

eat:Festivals are renowned across the South West not just for the excellence of their festivals and traders selection, but for their award-winning efforts to produce a sustainably run festival. We talk to festival co-founder, Beverley Milner-Simonds, about the importance of shopping locally, eating local foods and supporting local businesses.

Q) You run a series of award-winning local food festivals across the West Country. What does local mean to you, and why is it so important that you only feature very local traders at each event?

A) We’re all from somewhere, and making where you live work and play a better place seems the right thing to do. Focusing on local producers allows us to keep that money in the local community and introduce people to producers they can buy from easily time and time again.

Q) If people are used to buying big brand products, what do you think are the key things they’ll notice if they start to shop at smaller local places, or to buy locally made, hand-crafted food from local producers (and why does it matter)?

A) Buying from small local producers allows you to get the story behind the product. To understand how it was grown, made and ultimately brought to life for you. Understanding where your food comes from, meeting the maker, and having a great time is the underlying ethos to eat:Festivals.

Q) Why is it important to support local producers and do you have any specific examples of a business that suffered then bounced back or had to innovate or diversify as a result of the huge challenges of recent years?

A) Being able to help micro and small businesses thrive really gets us out of bed in the morning with a big smile on our faces. Watching fledging businesses grow, become employers, develop new products and get stocked locally is incredibly rewarding. Take for example Nutts Scotch eggs. They relied heavily on face-to-face sales, pre-pandemic. Now, they also focus on their online sales, supported by some of their previous direct sales to customers, and have developed their kitchen space ready to supply bigger customers wholesale in this post-pandemic world. They’ve seen a big switch in their business balance; having more regular wholesale customers now enables them to have a steadier income and to employ two more members of staff.

Q) You’ve won multiple awards for your green, planet-first ethos. What environmental, green or ‘local’ related award are you most proud of and why, and do you have any nuggets of advice for small food businesses who want to minimise their impact as they grow?

A) We are very proud of how we run our business. Sustainability for us has six key parts. Transport, energy use, water use, food, waste and impact in the community. The events industry has been a very wasteful sector over the years, with temporary structures erected and scrapped after the event. We were recognised at the Tourism Excellence Awards South West in 2019 for our responsible, ethical and sustainable approach to tourism. We have proved that you can run events differently. At a festival, you have an opportunity to engage with people in a different way. You can prompt behaviour change by encouraging people to walk, cycle or scoot to your event, or mandating no single-use plastic (which met with no resistance whatsoever from any of our producers). You can encourage people to switch to fully compostable materials, or to those that can be recycled at home for those who are taking purchases away with them. Our top tip for small food businesses starting out is to look at the different aspects of their production along those six areas we highlighted. Transport, energy use, water use, food, waste and impact in the community.

Q) Where might your traders’ products be stocked, locally and in the region? Will you find any of them at motorway services?

A) We get such a buzz when we spot one of our producers being stocked locally, regionally and in some cases nationally. You’ll find our producers at your local farm shops and sometimes even at farm gate sales too. But you’ll also spot them on the menus at independent restaurants and cafes and bistros and at some petrol stations and forecourts, especially businesses like Touts, based in North Somerset.

Q) The Extra Mile book exists to help people find good local food in lovely surroundings just off motorway and main road junctions, to stop them having to go to the Services. Can you name a few of your own favourites (here is the Extra Mile map if that helps)?

A) Top tips off the Motorway? Well, obviously Gloucester Services for anyone heading up and down the M5 in the West Country. We also love Pyne’s of Somerset, just south of Bridgwater. Brockley Stores on the A370 in North Somerset, OMG, it’s worth the detour, let’s face it, such incredible stuff in there! If you’re heading further south on the M5, then Darts Farm is a really good food hub, with lots of amazing producers stocked there. And if you’re looking for a cracking cup of coffee, we’d love you to turn off at Wellington and go and explore Brazier, a coffee roaster based in Wellington with a lovely back story.

Q) Will you use The Extra Mile Guide – Delicious Alternatives to Motorway Services?

A) Being able to get to the root of where your food and drink comes from, to meet the maker and to hear the story behind the product, is a really nourishing way to eat. The Extra Mile enables you to discover great local food and drink on your travels so we think it’s a great idea!

eat:Festivals are a great free day out. You’ll find them in 17 town and city centres across the South West, showcasing the very best of local food and drink from within 30 miles of the town. In addition to the truly incredible food and drink on offer, each festival offers free entertainment, education, sometimes free bike mechanic sessions and a whole heap of foodie fun.

Visit eat:Festivals on Facebook and their website for more details on upcoming events and how to join as a local trader.

To buy The Extra Mile Guide (from Glovebox Guides) visit our Shop now. The fourth edition is underway and will be out in spring 2023. Contact us now if interested in joining its collection of memorable local places to eat, drink and rest.