Best beach cafes around the UK

Riley's Fish Shack, Tynemouth, Tyne & Wear

Share supper by a firepit on the beach at Riley's Fish Shack, Tynemouth

(Image credit: Riley's Fish Shack)

published 7 May 2024

Take a trip to the coast and eat at one of these beachside venues, which offer everything from locally caught fish to regional specialities – guaranteed to have no sand in the sandwiches and all served up with a side of sea view.

The Hive Beach Cafe, Burton Bradstock, Dorset

"Living up to its name", this is a "hub of activity" situated on the Jurassic Coast, said The Telegraph. There's indoor and outdoor seating, and eat-in or takeaway service on a spectacular stretch of coastline looked after by the National Trust. Open for breakfast lunch and dinner, the menu is "tightly focused", said The Good Food Guide, with "an insistence on what is fresh, flavoursome and fun". Expect everything from traditional breakfast options such as kippers to more contemporary dishes like halloumi and guacamole muffins, as well as "whopping great boards of finger-lickin' garlic-butter-drippin' claw-crackin' crustacea: whole lobsters, crabs, king prawns, symphonies in salmon-pink", said Condé Nast Traveller, plus "colour-popping salads", too.

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After "starting life as a 'street-food (bicycle) stall'", Riley's, run by a husband-and-wife team, is now housed in "two customised shipping containers" on King Edward's Bay, "overlooking the frothy waves", said The Telegraph, where "glimpses of dolphins" are a possibility. "Seasonal seafood is the deal," said The Good Food Guide, and the menu and service times "often depend on the catch". Wood-fired sourdough wraps are "a fixture", while "pasty-like chilli-fish empanadas" are another favourite. And if the weather's less than wonderful "they will also sell you a blanket to use and take home".

In Hastings' next-door neighbour, Goat Ledge straddles the walkway beside the shingle beach. As well as fish and bacon-and-egg baps, there are "more unusual options, such as the Sunrise Sandwich (smoked haddock, fried egg and chilli jam), the Vegan Sunrise (essentially, mushrooms and hash browns), and the Vegan Goat Bap (tofu and pickled red cabbage)", said The Telegraph. There are tables on the beach for fine weather, or you can shelter in the cafe's "brilliantly colourful heated beach huts". And as the day draws to a close, "don't forget the sunset DJ sessions" on Thursday and Friday nights in summer.

Half a mile along the coast path from Portscatho, on the Roseland peninsula, is "one of the UK's most individual, well-loved and now most well-known 'secret' outdoor-dining experiences", said The Telegraph. And "from a tiny shed" come "fresh cakes, rainbow-bright salads, grilled fish bought each morning from the day boats and sharing-size platters of paella", said Condé Nast Traveller. And in summer, they hold "immense" feast nights when dinner is served at "one table running right along the beach". It's a place that's "impossible not to adore", said Grace Dent in The Guardian, and the food here "is recognisable and reassuring, but with dashes of pizazz and minor weirdness for the tourists and trendies".

This wood-walled cafe is on the sands, "just below the Uplands suburb where the poet Dylan Thomas grew up", said The Times. Tuck in to a Welsh breakfast with laverbread and cockles, or the international favourites on the lunch and dinner menu, such as crab ravioli, halloumi burger or steak salad, while enjoying the view of "a long and splendid curving shore", as Thomas described it. And the bar in the name is amply stocked with cocktails, beers, wines, soft drinks and hot beverages.

"Right on the sand", Harry's Shack has "views over the enormous stretch of National Trust beach that is Portstewart Strand", said Condé Nast Traveller. When the wind's up "stay cosy inside the spacious timber-clad hut with its wood-burning stove"; in finer weather "simple wooden tables spill out onto the beach". Founded by the former Fat Duck and Riverside Brasserie chef Derek Creagh, and Donal Doherty "(son of the eponymous Harry)", said The Telegraph, the Shack serves "confident, hearty and high-quality food – think top-notch fish and chips, huge turbot and a rather special chocolate pot".

This beach is "one of the most unspoilt and beautiful stretches of sand in the country", said the Eastern Daily Press, attracting thousands of walkers each year. The cafe is on the edge of the Holkham National Nature Reserve, and "summer swallows swoop low over visitors' heads", said The Times. You can also see "oystercatchers, greenshanks and lapwings on the marshes", and the Lookout has telescopes for a closer view. The award-winning circular slatted-wood building blends discreetly into its surroundings. On the eat-in/takeaway menu are satisfying hot baps, sandwiches and cakes. "Every detail is eco-sensitive", said The Times, including "compostable pots, wrapper-less real-fruit lollies and money off for bringing your own cup".

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Adrienne Wyper has been a freelance sub-editor and writer for The Week's website and magazine since 2015. As a travel and lifestyle journalist, she has also written and edited for other titles including BBC Countryfile, British Travel Journal, Coast, Country Living, Country Walking, Good Housekeeping, The Independent, The Lady and Woman’s Own.