A Local's Guide to St Ives

Dip and dine in arty St Ives

White-sand beaches lapped by Caribbean-blue seas. Sub-tropical foliage, wildflowers and wild heathland spilling down to the water’s edge. A pick ’n’ mix of fishermen’s cottages, restaurants, arcades and galleries huddled around a harbour, where fishing boats land their catch and artists etch the landscape onto canvases. Bucket-and-spade days, ice cream and pasties. Or Michelin-starred dining, boutique browsing and buckets of culture. 

A former artists’ colony and fishing village, St Ives has – for good reason – become one of the UK’s favourite holiday destinations synonymous with stylish seaside living. Pack your hiking boots, your wetsuit and your best suit. Be a culture vulture, a festival queen, a surfer, a gastronome, a hiker or an artist. Whatever you do, be inspired and fill yourself to the gills. St Ives is one of the coolest of Cornwall’s towns for a weekend, a holiday or a day out. 

The Scene

Cradled by rugged coastline, St Ives flaunts all the credentials of quintessential Cornwall – pearly beaches, pumping surf and whitewashed cottages tumbling to the ocean’s edge. But it has long outgrown its roots as a fishing village and bloomed into one of the UK’s most desired beach towns. 

The incredible light and beauty that’s lured artists since the 60s has spawned galleries galore along its tangle of streets – the leading act being the internationally-renowned Tate St Ives. A flock of contemporary writers and artists followed in the footsteps of GOATs such as DH Lawrence, Barbara Hepworth and Sir Terry Frost, their words and works on display alongside an array of artisan products in the muddle of chic boutiques. 

Then there’s the abundant harvest of delectable produce plucked from the surrounding land and sea, which has given rise to a rich foodie scene. You can still get your chops around a traditional Cornish pasty, but these days there’s also the choice of Michelin-starred restaurants, just-caught seafood served bang-on-the-beach, and parlours serving ice cream made from local cows.

From the ancient moorland to the harbour, the town’s history is etched beneath the surface of its modern facade. The net lofts where artists once erected their easels have been renovated into swanky pads for tourists vying for the best views.

Where fishermen once reigned beyond the shoreline, now pleasure boats putter out of the harbour to bring you face-to-face with marine life, while surfers carve their lines into the waves that pound the beaches. And all this hugged by some of the most rugged coastal scenery in the whole of Cornwall, beckoning you to strike out on foot to picturesque coves, pre-historic sites and some pretty dramatic viewpoints. 

The Hot Spots

The best introduction to this breathtaking beach town is to arrive on the St Ives Bay railway line from St Erth. There is arguably no other 15-minute train journey that boasts such incredible views – a glistening estuary, swathes of pearly sands, wild waves, swaying palms and the endless horizon unfolding before your eyes.

Immersed in the very seascapes that inspired John Miller’s internationally-renowned paintings of St Ives Bay, you’d be forgiven for doing the journey twice before disembarking beside the dreamy Porthminster Beach. Gaze out to Godrevy lighthouse from the terrace of the prestigious Porthminster Café, and you can rest assured that the gob-smacking views don’t stop when you step off the train.

Aside from the beaches – which we’ll come onto next – the harbour and labyrinth of streets leading to it are where it’s all happening in St Ives. Start your meanderings from the Lifeboat Station, where the local crew have been saving lives at sea since 1839.

You could spend all day dipping in and out of the waterside galleries, boutiques, arcades and eateries, but we’d suggest shuffling along and taking in the scene from a bench outside The Sloop Inn – one of Cornwall’s oldest pubs, where fishermen have been sipping local ales since 1312. If the weather’s inclement, slink inside and bag a booth; it’s up to you if you start with coffee or dive right into the range of local cask ales and their own small batch gin, made from Cornish potatoes and botanicals. 

Keep strolling along the seafront and you can gen up on the area’s history at the St Ives Museum, where you’ll discover all sorts of artefacts, including a pilchard curing cellar, ironmongery and seafaring memorabilia. When you mosey back through the old quarter, you’ll be able to imagine the town back in its fishing and mining heyday, long before tourism fuelled the local economy.

If you’ve got a penchant for shopping and seaside style, you’ll prefer its modern-day vibe, with a fusion of independent shops, boho boutiques, galleries and delis to savour. To save you some browsing time, make a beeline for some of our favourites, which include the classic St Ives Bookseller for literary lovers, The Cornish Deli for local ingredients, Brocante for interior style and Ula for clothing and lifestyle. 

However, don’t overload your shopping bags too early – there’s still so much to see and do. You can take a shortcut along ‘The Digey’ to the surf-lashed Porthmeor beach on the other side of town, but we’d recommend the longer route around ‘The Island’ – an iconic, grassy headland jutting into the Atlantic on the edge of town. On your way round, dip onto the little cove of Porthgwidden (pause for a tipple on the terrace of the Porthgwidden Café), scour the horizon for dolphins, seals and seabirds, and capture the mesmerising views from the coastguard lookout and the hilltop 15th-century chapel. 

The Beaches

Big ones, small ones, sandy ones, shingle ones… for a small town St Ives is endowed with a whopping number of beautiful beaches that lure surfers, swimmers, sun lizards, walkers and the bucket and spade brigades. With Blue Flag water quality, a lifeguard service throughout the holidays, pods of dolphins passing through and seals popping their whiskered noses above azure waters, it’s no wonder that these golden shores are rated as some of the best beaches in the UK.

From Godrevy to Porthmeor, there’s a stretch of sand facing in every direction, so you can pick a pearly pocket to suit your style – whether you want to catch the swell, bathe in a sheltered nook or fly a kite.

Step foot on the sugar-white, palm-backed Porthminster Beach, and you’d harbour no disappointment if this was the town’s only crescent of sand. Lapped by calm, cerulean waters, it’s the perfect spot for a dip and picnic. You could try your luck for a table at the esteemed Porthminster Beach Café, or soak up the beach scenery from the more laidback setting of the garden Gin Bar and Outdoor Kitchen.

However you choose to plunge into beach life, don’t set up camp too soon – this is just the beginning of the toes-in-the-sand experience. Meander around the corner and Harbour Beach opens up before you, a low-tide gem made for pasties and ice cream (mind the hungry gulls), and also the launch point for boat trips to seek out local landmarks and sea life. 

Follow the hem of town and you’ll never be far from a paradise bay – especially as the tide ebbs and reveals a necklace of sand and shingle coves. Despite its diminutive proportions compared to the three-mile St Ives Bay it faces, our favourite beach is Porthgwidden. Tucked into the nook of the island, it’s packed with all the beach pleasures you could possibly want – food with a view, beach huts, bucket-and-spades, paddleboarding, and even parking (which is limited in St Ives).

Where the Atlantic swells sweep into the northern side of town on surfy Porthmeor, there’s fierce competition in the waves. Grab a surfing lesson and kit if you want to join in, spectate over tapas at the beach café, or take a twirl around the Tate St Ives and watch from the rooftop café. 

There’s not just the platter of town beaches to choose from – break out to the Caribbean-esque Carbis Bay (by train or on foot), and you won’t be able to resist the three-mile golden stretch of St Ives Bay, unfurling from the foot of the lighthouse immortalised by Virginia Woolf.

Backed by miles of dunes and divided into the four main beaches of Hayle Towans, Mexicos, Gwithian and Godrevy, the bay is a Mecca for surfers, kitesurfers, walkers and swimmers, as well as home to a resident seal colony. Walkers with four-legged friends are relegated to Mexicos in the summer months, but Fido and friends can frolic in the sea foam on the pearly Porthkidney Sands (dubbed ‘Happy Dog Beach’) in every season. 

The Food

No longer a destination renowned only for its beaches and art, these days St Ives’ foodie reputation is fast-chasing its creative legacy and the allure of its white-sand beaches. From just-caught fish flipped from rod to pan, and Michelin-starred restaurants helmed by celeb chefs, to sea-view hotspots and street food by the beach, there are eateries for all tastes and budgets.

Foodie Specials

Fortunately, you can clock up plenty of miles on a stroll around St Ives to work up an appetite worthy of its gourmet offerings. If it’s a special occasion, tuck into seasonal ingredients personally presented by the chef in the intimate, 18-seater dining room of The Pig & Fish. Or, for Michelin-starred creative cooking in an impressive setting, feast on the Atlantic scenery and perfectly-cooked local food under the spell of Adam Handling at the Ugly Butterly in Carbis Bay.

Also in the Michelin stable is The Gurnard’s Head, a seriously sophisticated country inn that’s worth the 20-minute drive out of town to feast on seasonal produce plucked from the Cornish larder.

Back in town, bona fide seafood lovers are spoilt for choice; tuck into the tasting menu at One Fish Street, where small plates are tailored to what’s landed on the day boats, combined with ingredients from artisan growers and producers. Meat lovers can roll up too, as three days a week it’s transformed into a slightly more laidback and lively grill house.

If you prefer local meats to eat on the beach, get a takeaway burger or Cornish free-range chicken off the rotisserie at Blas. Specialising in fried free-range chicken and craft beers, alongside crowd-pleasing monster burgers and Belgian waffles is the family-run Beer & Bird, or if you want a cosy Sunday lunch for the whole family, head to the Queens Hotel, where the blackboard is chalked daily with the best of what comes in from local fishermen and farmers.

With so many Cornish ice cream kiosks, it’s hard to know which to pick for a sweet treat, but it’s well worth queuing at the Moomaid of Zennor, for ice cream made from cows grazing in meadows on the cliffs nearby.

If you’re keen to sample a smorgasbord of the region’s finest produce, time your visit with the St Ives Food and Drink Festival in May, when Porthminster Beach is packed with gastronomic delights, artisan tents, live music and cookery demos, and culinary experts lead foodie trails around the town.

Ocean Views

Thanks to its topography, many of St Ives’ foodie delights are served with a side order of stunning ocean views. Whether you fancy a hearty breakfast roll after a morning dip, or the finest Cornish ingredients fused with flavours of Asia and the Med, take a seat at the Porthgwidden Café, where you might even spot a pod of dolphins crossing the cerulean stretch of St Ives’ Bay.

Its bigger – and even better known – sister restaurant, the Porthminster Beach Café, needs little introduction for its bucket-loads of accolades, fish-biased menu and beachside vibes. Frankly, there are few better venues to take a seat on the heated terrace, sip a crisp white from a beach-bucket cooler, and devour ingredients flipped from the sea and picked from the kitchen garden. If you can’t bag a table, you’ll get the same quality ingredients in the more laidback setting of its garden Gin Bar and Outdoor Kitchen. 

Also from the team behind these two popular beach ‘cafés’ is the harbour-side Porthminster Kitchen, where the menu offers a light and creative twist on Cornish cuisine, with small plates and global flavours served in a chic urban-style venue boasting no-less spectacular waterside views.

If you prefer to watch the surfing action or bag the best view of the sunset while you graze, skip over to the Porthmeor Beach Café and get a window seat or heated booth for tapas and Med-inspired dishes in this retro-chic diner overhanging St Ives’ most famous surf break.

Cool Beach Bars and Pubs

If it’s a glass of fizz and a fiery sunset you’re seeking, you can’t really beat the aforementioned Porthmeor Beach Café. But with a recent boom in craft beers and botanicals hailing from this beautiful corner of Cornwall, there are plenty of cool bars and pubs where the provenance of what’s in your glass is taken as seriously as that of what’s on your plate.

The Searoom is one such place, run by a family of connoisseurs who spent years experimenting with aromatic flavours plucked from the Cornish coastline to produce their own St Ives Gin. A couple of minute’s stroll along the seafront, The Rum and Crab Shack serves its own famous rums alongside over 100 varieties from around the world, in a nautical setting where you can watch the comings and goings of boats through porthole windows. 

Seeing as The Sloop Inn opened its doors way back in 1312, this much-loved waterside boozer has had plenty of time to perfect its selection of cask ales on tap, which they’ve now complemented with their own small batch gin made from Cornish potatoes and botanicals. After a couple of tipples you might find yourself joining in with the merriment of local bands.

If you’re looking for somewhere a little more refined seek out Scarlet Wines, an independent wine shop and café on the outskirts of town, where you can pick up the finest hand-selected vintages from around the globe, as well as tuck into a great breakfast or tapas-style lunches.

The Attractions 

Arts Scene

What with the town’s creative legacy, it comes as no surprise that many of the town’s attractions are entrenched in its art heritage. As you’d expect of an artists’ colony, the streets are lined with galleries – the beacon of the town’s status being the Tate St Ives, where you can witness contemporary art from Cornwall and beyond under one, newly-extended roof. You don’t have to be an art buff to appreciate its appeal – there are interactive exhibits, family trails, workshops, a brilliant gift shop and a rooftop café where the panoramic views might spark your own arty muse.

Cornish residents can get a local’s pass for year-round entry, and all visitors will save money with a combined ticket to the must-visit sub-tropical paradise of the Barbara Hepworth Museum & Sculpture Gardens, featuring monumental sculptures inspired by the coastal environment. 

In the stellar line-up alongside these two greats is the Leach Pottery museum, studio and shop, that has been pivotal in the international pottery world since the 1920s. Even amateurs can join in a throwing workshop and create a masterpiece to take home.

If it doesn’t turn out to be such a ‘masterpiece’, scour the Porthminster Gallery for impressive artworks to hang on your wall, or visit the St Ives Society of Artists for a showcase of local art in the stunning setting of a former Mariners Church. 

The best way to get face-to-face with local artists and find your own creative treasures is by getting lost in the maze of cobbled back roads dotted with artists studios and craft workshops. And if you’re stirred by the arty ambience around you, tap into your own creative side with drawing and painting workshops at Barnoon Arts or the St Ives School of Painting. 

The Activities

Vitamin Sea

If you’re feeling adventurous, there’s no need to settle for gawping at the seascape from dry land: Hop on-board a boat trip to Seal Island or helm a self-drive motorboat around the bay and beaches. Take a swim in one of the many sheltered coves, or don a wetsuit and plunge into the surf that pounds Porthmeor Beach – if you’re not an experienced surfer you can get lessons and equipment from St Ives Surf School.

Or, if you want a closer look at the underwater life – that’s not just the view you get from wiping out from your surfboard – you can join a snorkelling trip from Carbis Bay, or spot the sea life through underwater viewers onboard a Hawaiian outrigger canoe. 

On Land

While the watery world beckons from every viewpoint, you don’t have to cast away to immerse yourself in the coastal landscapes that St Ives is so famous for. You’re in walking territory extraordinaire, so all you need is your hiking boots and a backpack to stuff with supplies from the town’s delis. Strike out beyond Clodgy Point at the western end of town, and within minutes you’ll feel worlds away from civilisation.

Boulder-strewn coastal trails and ancient moorland smattered with wildflowers and pre-historic stones, give way to wave-hewn granite zawns where fulmars nest above extraordinary coves inaccessible by all but legendary mermaids and a few hardy climbers. A calf-busting six miles takes you to the the hamlet of Zennor, where you can take a pitstop at the historic Tinners Arms before looping back across the fields, or – if your legs have had enough – you can hop on the bus back to St Ives. 

If you want a more manageable stroll, set off east out of St Ives and it’s an easy 1.2 mile-long walk to the white sands of Carbis Bay. It’s not quite as wild as the western reaches of town, but you can soak up stunning views of St Ives Bay and Godrevy lighthouse, spot seals and seabirds en route, and hop back to your start point on the train.

Relaxation & Wellbeing

Not all of the town’s activities require physical exertion – there are plenty of ways to relax that don’t rely on sunny days for basking on the beach. Una St Ives advocates putting your feet up, taking a dip in the lido, or relieving stress under the spell of a spa treatment in its state-of-the-art spa and leisure club. Or you can stretch into your Zen with St Ives Yoga, where you’ll be treated to a sound bath at the end of each session. Of course, if the sun does shine, by all means enjoy your own personal Savasana laying on a beach towel and listening to the soothing pulse of the ocean. 

The Events

We’ve already mentioned the St Ives Food and Drink Festival that lures foodies from far and wide in May, but it’s not the only crowd-pulling event in this already lively beach town. The St Ives September Festival is a two-week celebration of the music and the arts scene, kicking off autumn with exhibitions, street parades, live bands, film screenings and workshops in venues throughout the town. 

One of the oldest, and lesser-known celebrations, is St Ives Feast Day, held on the first Monday after 3rd February each year, in celebration of the consecration of the Parish Church of St Eia in 1434. As well as a parade led by the Mayoress, the event is known for the traditional hurling of a silver ball through the streets. 

The Wrap

So, with its bucket-loads of art, food, beach life, watersports, scenery and events, St Ives is a year-round hub for a seaside sojourn. Visit between November and June, and you can be blessed with deserted landscapes, tables in the best restaurants and an unseasonably warm, sub-tropical climate. In the summer months, plunge into the saltwater lifestyle and feel the sand between your toes, but be prepared to fight the crowds for your seat and the seagulls for your pasty.

Whenever you visit, whether you’re a local or visitor, you’ll no doubt be captivated by the mighty allure of this boho-chic beach town and come back with an appetite for more of its stylish saltwater lifestyle.