One of my favorite things about Tresco and the Isles of Scilly is the food! There is such a diverse range of locally sourced, homegrown produce, the majority of which you can see growing and developing around you as you explore the islands.
On Tresco there are 2 shops. One is the main and official shop where you can buy toiletries, drinks, Cornish cheeses, cereals and all the normal things you'd find in a food shop, but you can also buy Tresco beef, that comes from the very free range cows on the island, and Troy Town Farm ice cream that's made on St Agnes, another of the islands. On the other side of Tresco, up a track is the other 'shop'. It's not your normal shop though, this is the Tresco Farm shop - an open shack stocking whatever has been pulled fresh from the ground that morning - there's new potatoes, fresh garlic, green beans, salads, strawberries, courgettes, homemade jam and lots more - and an honesty box where you leave your money.
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Eating out on the islands has got a lot more interesting in the last couple of years. On Tresco there are 2 places to go for food - the Ruin Beach Cafe, and the island's pub The New Inn. We ate at both this year, starting with an evening meal in the Ruin. The menu centres around the local produce and includes a wonderful crab linguine, that comes with a really generous amount of Scilly crab - Lucy loved hers!!
The Ruin has its own wood fired oven where they cook homemade pizzas and bread, both of which are really yummy.
Everyone loved their main courses, with both my parents going for the sea bream special.
We finished the meal with an espresso martini, a drink I don't drink very often but really enjoy when I do! (Excuse the packet of fags on the table!!)
You don't have to eat out on Tresco - there's plenty of opportunity to cook in the cottages as well, and we enjoyed several barbecues over the week, as well as super fresh mackerel sashimi, sliced thinly and served with soy and lemon, the fish had only been out of the water for less than an hour! Fresh like this, it's my favorite type of sashimi.
But if eating out is your thing then you must also try the New Inn. A pub it may be, but the food there is brilliant. We had a quick lunch at the pub on our last day, and it was one of my favorite meals of the holiday. Simple Tresco beef burgers, cooked pink, served with cheesy chips made with Tallegio cheese was just so good. And being the little greedy that I am, I also ordered the potted shrimp starter, which was the best potted shrimp I've had. It wasn't claggy and too rich with butter like it can be, and you could taste the freshness of the shrimps and herbs. Mmmm, I wish I had somewhere closer to home that served it!!
The lack of photos of the pub food is down to my hunger and inability to not eat it all before I got the camera out!
The pub grow their own herbs and were kind enough to give me this box full when I asked to buy some from them for the dinner I was cooking at home!
They also sell cornish Treleaven ice cream at the pub, and I tried the pink vodka grapefruit sorbet, and the salted caramel ice cream, both of which were fantastic, although I wouldn't recommend ordering them together - the combo was a bit strange! I knew it would be but literally couldn't not try either!
If you want to eat on Bryher, which is the island next to Tresco, there are 2 really good places there as well. The Hell Bay Hotel on Bryher also serves local produce, cooked well, with a slightly more restaurant feel to it. And the latest addition to the islands is the Crab Shack on Bryher, where they serve mussels, scallops and crab, all caught off the islands, at a long table. Sadly, the crab shack was only open on the Monday we were there and was fully booked until the end of August, so we couldn't go, so if you want to go, make sure you get booked in!!
If really local, beautiful produce is your thing, then Tresco is hosting 2 foodie weekends in September which sound like my idea of heaven - foraging and cooking with ingredients sourced from the islands. Wonderful!! More information on that's available through the Tresco website.
On Tresco there are 2 shops. One is the main and official shop where you can buy toiletries, drinks, Cornish cheeses, cereals and all the normal things you'd find in a food shop, but you can also buy Tresco beef, that comes from the very free range cows on the island, and Troy Town Farm ice cream that's made on St Agnes, another of the islands. On the other side of Tresco, up a track is the other 'shop'. It's not your normal shop though, this is the Tresco Farm shop - an open shack stocking whatever has been pulled fresh from the ground that morning - there's new potatoes, fresh garlic, green beans, salads, strawberries, courgettes, homemade jam and lots more - and an honesty box where you leave your money.
Eating out on the islands has got a lot more interesting in the last couple of years. On Tresco there are 2 places to go for food - the Ruin Beach Cafe, and the island's pub The New Inn. We ate at both this year, starting with an evening meal in the Ruin. The menu centres around the local produce and includes a wonderful crab linguine, that comes with a really generous amount of Scilly crab - Lucy loved hers!!
The Ruin has its own wood fired oven where they cook homemade pizzas and bread, both of which are really yummy.
Everyone loved their main courses, with both my parents going for the sea bream special.
We finished the meal with an espresso martini, a drink I don't drink very often but really enjoy when I do! (Excuse the packet of fags on the table!!)
You don't have to eat out on Tresco - there's plenty of opportunity to cook in the cottages as well, and we enjoyed several barbecues over the week, as well as super fresh mackerel sashimi, sliced thinly and served with soy and lemon, the fish had only been out of the water for less than an hour! Fresh like this, it's my favorite type of sashimi.
But if eating out is your thing then you must also try the New Inn. A pub it may be, but the food there is brilliant. We had a quick lunch at the pub on our last day, and it was one of my favorite meals of the holiday. Simple Tresco beef burgers, cooked pink, served with cheesy chips made with Tallegio cheese was just so good. And being the little greedy that I am, I also ordered the potted shrimp starter, which was the best potted shrimp I've had. It wasn't claggy and too rich with butter like it can be, and you could taste the freshness of the shrimps and herbs. Mmmm, I wish I had somewhere closer to home that served it!!
The lack of photos of the pub food is down to my hunger and inability to not eat it all before I got the camera out!
The pub grow their own herbs and were kind enough to give me this box full when I asked to buy some from them for the dinner I was cooking at home!
They also sell cornish Treleaven ice cream at the pub, and I tried the pink vodka grapefruit sorbet, and the salted caramel ice cream, both of which were fantastic, although I wouldn't recommend ordering them together - the combo was a bit strange! I knew it would be but literally couldn't not try either!
If you want to eat on Bryher, which is the island next to Tresco, there are 2 really good places there as well. The Hell Bay Hotel on Bryher also serves local produce, cooked well, with a slightly more restaurant feel to it. And the latest addition to the islands is the Crab Shack on Bryher, where they serve mussels, scallops and crab, all caught off the islands, at a long table. Sadly, the crab shack was only open on the Monday we were there and was fully booked until the end of August, so we couldn't go, so if you want to go, make sure you get booked in!!
If really local, beautiful produce is your thing, then Tresco is hosting 2 foodie weekends in September which sound like my idea of heaven - foraging and cooking with ingredients sourced from the islands. Wonderful!! More information on that's available through the Tresco website.
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