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After a day on the beach, what could be better than a hot mackerel sandwich or a crab wrap? Here are the best seafood takeaways round the country
When the weather is good, nothing quite beats fish-shack cuisine and the offerings around the coastline are better than ever.
The Crab Shack on the tiny island of Bryher, in the Scillies, has just opened for the summer – serving crabs, scallops and mussels from a converted shed with marquee extension, in the grounds of Hell Bay Hotel. New England-style decor completes the Hemingway fantasy and food is served in in Portuguese cataplanas, with hammers and aprons provided (clearly the messier the more authentic).
Keeping West, Observer restaurant critic, Jay Rayner recommends the Crab House Cafe, on Chesil Beach, Dorset as his favourite place to eat on holiday. "Not much to look at: a shack, a yard, a few wooden tables and a view of the sea. But the Portland crab and huge prawns in tarragon butter are what you come for".
Bob Granleese, food editor for the Guardian's Weekend Magazine urges anyone in the area to try Seafood House, Teignmouth which he describes as "bonkers but brilliant, like being served fabulous crab sarnies out of someone's front room. Actually, it's not like, it is being served acers crab sarnies out of someone's front room."
On the opposite side of the country, at Riley's Fish Shack, Adam Riley pedals (literally, as he transports fish from the local market on the back of a Heath Robinson-style bike) mackerel wraps, squid on a stick and chargrilled lobster from the beach in Tynemouth, near Newcastle. Born out of frustration that the local catch rarely ended in local mouths, Riley, who runs the shack with his wife, Lucy says there was a real shortage of healthy seafood. "We have lived here for the best part of a decade and the only seafood I'd seen came in a coating of batter."
Another of Rayner's favourites is the Company Shed in West Mersea, Essex "essentially a wet-fish shop, with a few tables, serving oysters, crab and prawns (but you bring your own bread, wine and condiments)." Keep heading round the East Anglian coast and you'll end up in Brancaster (north Norfolk), where critics rave about the Crab Hut.
Back on the South Coast, the Dungeness Fish Hut in Kent is a popular choice and in Sussex, there is the Brighton Smokehouse, alongside the city's seafront Fishing Museum, which previously won the best takeaway at Radio 4's Food and Farming Awards. Run by former trawler man, Jack Mills and his wife Linda, they pride themselves on their chemical-free oak and applewood smoking and cooking the fish within an hour of purchase from local fisherman. The result is sublime - though you need to watch hungry seagulls as you tuck into hot mackerel or crab sandwiches.
Crossing over to the Welsh coast, Cafe Môr was the overall winner of the British Street Food Awards 2011 with their hand-made, seafood-stuffed flatbreads, and they took home the best sandwich award this year for their crab wrap. Not a million miles away is the Cockle Rotunda in Swansea market - where Carol Watts (subject of Rolf Harris's painting The Cockle Woman) sells cockles and mussels from the Gower peninsula. Across the water in Ireland, Rick Stein favourites, Linnane's Lobster Bar, sits on the quay in Burren, Co Clare
Back in mainland UK, the Seafood Hut on Calmac Pier in Oban offers hot smoked salmon and mussels and also gets puntersqueueing for its oysters, crab sandwiches and razor clams.
The ambience isn't quite the same but, even in city centres, freshly-caught fish, cooked on site and served from makeshift premises serves as a reminder that the shore is never far away, says Robin Dunlop, whose Oyster Boys, a pop-up street food operation is about to embark on a month long run at the Edinburgh festival. "Obviously we're not right on the sea but there is still something about the preparations and cooking of fish which takes you there."
"You don't have to be by the sea to sample locally caught fresh produce," says Great British Menu Chef, Mark Greenway, whose own Edinburgh restaurant serves fish caught daily "but you can't beat the romance." Greenaway's favourite place to get messy with seafood is The Lobster Shack in North Berwick's tiny harbour. "Watch fish being landed and cooked as you sit overlooking the sea. On a beautiful day, you really can't beat that."