FROM LEFT: Chefs
Tom Adams and
April Bloomfield
forage for
ingredients at
Coombeshead
Farm; a branch
of the popular
Cornish Bakery,
in Padstow.
closer, I noticed a pattern: the man would
bound dow n 10 or so steps. Then, he’d t ur n a nd
wait expectantly for the woman. She had two
walking sticks, one in each hand, and took care
with each step, never rushing. When she
approached him, she held both sticks in one
hand. He reached out to her, she grasped his
hand, and they walked together for a few steps
before he sped his way down again.
As we passed the couple, we greeted them.
When we were safely out of earshot, I said to
Tristan: “Is that going to be us someday?”
“I hope so,” he replied.W
e ended our hike in Padstow,
which owes its culinary stardom
to celebrity chef Rick Stein, who
moved to Cornwall in the 1970s.
One evening, we dined at his casual restaurant
Stein’s Fish & Chips. The lemon sole in a crisp
batter was heavenly—the fact that we had to
pay one pound for tartar sauce, less so.The establishment is one of eight Padstow
businesses bearing the Stein name, including
four restaurants, two gift shops, a fish market
and a bakery. (He also runs a hotel and rents
cottages and rooms above the restaurants.)
Stein’s success has downsides, as does
Cornwall’s emergence as a gastronomic
destination. The Cornish never fail to point
t hem out. “There’s a Cor nish say ing,” sa id Ma rk
Hellyar, a native whose family raises lambs and
grows barley on 161 hectares outside Padstow.
“Give a Cornishman a pot of gold, and he’ll
complain that he doesn’t like the pot.” The
complaints? Crowds in Padstow, whose
population swells from about 2,500 to 5,000
during peak season. Commercialization, too:
Stein’s empire can feel corporate and over-
branded. When I asked our server for the fish-
and-chip shop’s Wi-Fi password, she looked
surprised and replied, “rickstein.”
The upsides of success? Hundreds of jobs, as
well as a magnetism that attracts tourists and