Click here for food and drink in St Ives, Penzance and the Far West
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Here, the finest fish are caught, the finest produce grown, celebrity chefs are inspired and culinary creativity and flair are leading the way.
Few places in Britain can match West Cornwall for the quality of its cuisine, or for the variety of its modern restaurants, traditional pubs and colourful cafés. Pan-fried squid, seafood pasta with mussels and prawns, delicious monkfish, crab and coriander fish cakes - or splash out on gourmet lobster.
Cornish seas still provide bounty, but today those succulent bass, mullet, sole, hake, turbot, haddock, bream and shellfish are being served up in ever more delicious ways. Mediterranean and ethnic influenced bars and restaurants have proliferated responding to the educated tastes of an increasing number of foreign visitors. In St Ives,Truro, Falmouth and throughout West Cornwall even in our roadside inns and village eateries you'll find new excitement and creativity in the kitchen.
Spanish tapas with marinated olives, chorizo and paella... Greek with a Cornish horiátiki salata... Italian from a terrific choice of pastas in unforgettably delicious sauces... you'll find the best Pacific rim cuisine from Vietnam to Japan. Old-fashioned fare has not been abandoned - the best meat from local herds, the best game and poultry are still prepared in delicious ways.
West Cornwall wine lists are really adventurous with selections from the Old and New World and for the ale-fancier, there's a whole new world of innovative Cornish beers on tap, with some lip-smacking brews to enjoy.
Of course, if you really want to sample the old-fashioned taste of West Cornwall then try the famous Cornish pasty - traditional beef, potato, turnip and onion filling. And now everything from beef and stilton, spicy chicken, or lamb and mint with a mouth-watering selection of vegetarian fillings are available from specialist pasty shops that are always handy when you're hungry.
The sight of fishermen landing their catches is an intriguing one for visitors. A remarkable variety of fish are caught in West Cornwall's waters to be hauled up in baskets from the boat's hold and spilled out at the fish markets. Be careful when talking about lobsters however, cooked lobsters are red in colour - live lobsters are blue-black. If you see a live bright orange shellfish that looks a bit like a lobster - it's a 'crawfish' and it is pure gold with a taste to beat everything else...