Beachside Restaurants In Newquay Cornwall UK

If you're on holiday, or local and want a lovely relaxing lunch out, then I don't think you can beat an actual beachside restaurant for that feeling that you're away from it all.

Beach view restaurants will just tease you with a distant view, the beach inaccessible, but with a real beachside restaurant once you've finished your meal you can literally just step out onto the sand to enjoy the rest of your day.

Below are a selection of real beachside restaurants. Restaurants that are on the beach, not across the road above it, or on some clifftop, but actually there in the sand. Dining at a beachside restaurant really gives you that feeling that you're somewhere special, somewhere different - that you've escaped your usual daily grind.

If you're going on holiday to Newquay, Cornwall, then you should take the time to explore these venues and pick your favourite. Please vote below for the one which you think sounds most appealing - and leave any comments or queries. If you've visited any of these restaurants, please give your feedback in the comments section.

Restaurants in Newquay:

New for 2010, the restaurant at Lusty Glaze beach had a revamp and reopened as The Kitchen Restaurant. By late summer 2010 it had already won an award from phone company Orange as one of the best bars in Europe.

Some of the new features of The Kitchen include an outdoor decked terrace, with chimineas for the cooler evenings, a new takeaway and a fabulous ice-cream hut serving award-winning Cadbury's ice-cream!

Access to The Kitchen and Lusty Glaze beach, which is a private beach, is by walking round from Great Western beach when the tide's out, or (more usually) down the 100+ steps from the road above. It's therefore not disabled-friendly, but that's not anything they have control over as the north coast cliffs are 100' high and the steps are the only way to reach it.

Parking is at the top of the beach, where there's a car park right by the top of the access steps.

Lusty Glaze beach itself is fabulously sheltered - and is a great place to watch the sunsets from. During the daytime there are many beach activities, as well as some special events throughout the year. One fixture is the zip-wire ride, where for about £20 you can use a zip wire from the clifftop to drop down onto the beach.

Since May 2013, the restaurant on Tolcarne beach is Breaks. Taking over the successful Kahuna Restaurant, Breaks gave it a thorough makeover and opened the reason to rave reviews. Breaks is right at the bottom of Tolcarne cliffs, on a private beach and just 2' above the sand. Once you've finished dining, you're literally just 20 steps away from the beach itself, on the large sandy terraced area with loungers.

Breaks Restaurant opens for breakfast between 10-12, serving breakfast baps or a full English fry up. Lunchtime service starts at 12 and runs through until 5pm, serving locally caught lobster and seafood. The dishes on offer will depend on what has been caught locally, so will vary on a day to day basis. Typical locally-caught seafood on the Kahuna menu that you'll find are Cornish mussels, Cornish battered fish and Crayfish tails.

In addition to locally-caught seafood, Breaks Restaurant also offers food such as nachos, fries, cheesy chips, BLT baps, pizza, soup of the day, burgers, veggie burgers and a children's menu. Under 5s eat free, although they limit that to pasta.

Once the lunchtime menu finishes at 5pm, the restaurant stays open for more formal dining, there's no set time of closing, just "until late", if you're visiting during the peak season then it's a good idea to book by phone before you arrive.

Tolcarne beach is a lovely sandy beach, with caves and rock pools to discover when the tide's out.

If you're a fan of Kahuna and mourning their passing, they're now opposite the cinema at Little Kahuna and were voted Newquay's #1 restaurant in June 2013.

The Venus Cafe on Tolcarne is alongside the Kahuna.  It's more of a beach cafe than restaurant. 

Venus Cafe serves organic and locally-produced food, which you are free to sit on the beach and eat, or on the decked terrace overlooking the beach.  The Venus Cafe is just 10 paces from the sandy beach.

The Mermaid Inn is a lovely, cosy pub, frequented by locals and visitors alike. It's right alongside Porth Beach and open all day long, serving very generous portions of well-cooked food from a large menu ranging from seafood and steaks down to more standard pub-far if you're after pub classics.

You can dine in either of the bars, or enjoy al fresco dining at one of the trestle tables outside, just 2' above the sand.

The Mermaid Inn has very good parking, with its own car park on site, which I've never known to be full - but if it is, then there's an extensive public car park just 25 yards away on the other side of the road.

As the Mermaid Inn is a local pub, you'll find a good range of Cornish beers available too.

The Mermaid Inn is the only beachside restaurant in this list that's still a traditional seaside and locals' pub, the rest are more upmarket and modern in their decor, but the Mermaid Inn is my favourite because it's cosy and welcoming, with great staff.  The Mermaid is SO 'beachside' that during a recent sea storm a couple of rogue waves washed through the bar and started to carry the furniture off!

This business was sold in June 2010, and is now had the name changed from Windswept Cafe to Bodhi's.

Bodhi's, Pentire, Newquay, is a wooden building half way down the beach access steps on the southern end of Fistral Beach. With inside and outside dining, you're less than 20 steps away from the beach once you're enjoyed your meal.

Bodhi's has a range of home-made and locally-produced Cornish food of very high quality and is open seven days a week, from breakfast time through to 9pm.

Because of its location, there's no parking at Bodhi's and disabled access can be tricky as you have to go down the beach steps to access it. The nearest parking is on-street on Pentire.

The New Harbour Restaurant is right on the harbour beach in Newquay. Access to it is either via a set of steps near the bottom of Newquay Harbour road, or simply 2 steps up from the beach.  Newquay Harbour is a small and picturesque working harbour, depending on the time of day and the season you'll be able to dine and watch as fishermen set out to sea or return with a fresh catch of crabs, tourists and holidaymakers will be launching their boats, yachts and small catamarans and the local gig rowing club might even be setting out for a practise row.  If you're lucky, on an incoming tide, you might see the resident seals swimming in the harbour, waiting to be fed any stray fish.

The New Harbour Restaurant serves mostly fresh, locally-caught seafood.  There is a selection of other dishes for meat-eaters or vegetarians.

The New Harbour Restaurant is open from 12pm to 4.30pm daily, then open again in the evenings.

Once you've finished your meal, the harbour beach is just half a dozen footsteps away.

The nearest parking is a small pay and display car park at the Harbour.  The next nearest is either local on-street parking, or at the top of the Harbour access road in the public carpark overlooking the bowling green.