Scarborough eats better than most people expect and considerably more cheaply than the resorts on the south coast. It has a working fishing harbour, a town of sixty thousand people that needs feeding year-round rather than just in August, and — the surprise — an unusually good cluster of Turkish and Mediterranean restaurants in the middle of it.
The geography is compact. Huntriss Row, Aberdeen Walk, York Place and Newborough in the town centre hold most of the restaurants; the harbour and Foreshore Road have the chip shops and the seafood; and South Cliff has the hotel dining rooms.
The reason a great many people come, and Scarborough takes it seriously enough that recommending one shop over another is a way of starting an argument.
The Lifeboat Fish Bar on Eastborough, climbing from the harbour into the old town, has one of the highest ratings in the town and is the one locals name most often. Along Foreshore Road the traditional seafront shops do the classic version, and there are several good ones in the old town lanes.
The correct way to eat them is on the harbour wall, watching the boats, with the gulls circling. Guard the chips.
Scarborough still lands fish. Lookout on the Pier, on the West Pier among the fishing sheds, is a bistro doing what comes in, with the harbour outside the window. There are shellfish stalls along the pier selling crab, whelks and cockles in the traditional way, and a fishmonger or two in the town.
The town’s genuine surprise. Askim’s on Huntriss Row is Turkish, is consistently among the highest-rated restaurants in Scarborough, and has a following well beyond the town. Lezzet on Aberdeen Walk covers the Mediterranean end and is equally well regarded.
Licorella on York Place is a bistro doing modern European cooking, and Embers is the small ambitious one. Between them these four give Scarborough a restaurant scene a good deal better than its reputation.
Crema e Cioccolato on Newborough makes Italian ice cream on the premises and is one of the best-rated places in the town. Beyond it, the streets behind South Bay have a growing set of independent coffee shops, and the Stephen Joseph Theatre café and the Rotunda are both pleasant daytime stops.
The traditional seafront cafés along Foreshore Road do the other thing — mugs of tea, full breakfasts and a view of the sand — and there is nothing wrong with that either.
Dickens Bar and Inn on Huntriss Row is the town-centre standby with rooms above. The old town lanes climbing from the harbour hold a cluster of small pubs, several of them very old, and the town has a lively music scene for its size.
Yorkshire brewing is well represented, and there are several good local breweries along this coast.
Fish, obviously, and specifically the North Sea species — cod, haddock, plaice, and Whitby-landed crab and lobster in season.
Beyond it, Yorkshire produce: Yorkshire beef and lamb, Wensleydale and the newer Yorkshire cheeses, parkin and Yorkshire curd tart, and — increasingly — Yorkshire wine and whisky. The Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery at Hunmanby, twelve kilometres south, makes the county’s first single malt and has a restaurant attached.
Whitby, thirty-five kilometres north, has the best fish and chips reputation on the coast and a claim to being the birthplace of the modern version of the dish. It is an hour by bus and worth a trip.
Filey, Robin Hood’s Bay and the Three Jolly Sailors at Burniston are all easy evenings out, and the villages inland towards the moors have good pubs.
Malton, thirty-five kilometres west on the York road, has reinvented itself as Yorkshire’s food town with a monthly market, a cookery school and several good restaurants.
Booking. Summer weekends and school holidays fill the town, and the trains from Leeds and York arrive packed. Book dinner.
Year-round. Unlike smaller resorts, Scarborough does not close in winter — the resident population keeps the town-centre restaurants going, though the seafront trade thins out considerably.
Timing. The chip shops are busiest between six and eight; go either side.
Value. Scarborough is noticeably cheaper than comparable coastal towns in the south, and the cooking at the top end is better than the prices suggest.
Breakfast in one of the independents behind South Bay. Mid-morning coffee at the Rotunda or the Stephen Joseph Theatre café. Lunch at Lookout on the Pier among the fishing sheds, or fish and chips from the Lifeboat eaten on the harbour wall. Ice cream from Crema e Cioccolato in the afternoon. Dinner at Askim’s or Licorella in the town centre, booked. And a last drink in one of the small old pubs in the lanes climbing towards the castle.
Everything on that list is within fifteen minutes’ walk of the harbour.
Scarborough’s population effectively doubles on a hot summer weekend, and the trains from Leeds and York arrive full. The restaurants are small and they fill accordingly.
Two habits help: book dinner in the morning rather than the evening, and eat outside the peak hours — the chip shops in particular are queued between six and eight and quiet either side.
Out of season the town stays open, which is not true of the smaller resorts along this coast. The seafront trade thins from October, but the town-centre restaurants, the theatre and the pubs run year-round, and a winter weekend here is cheap and surprisingly good.
It deserves its own section because in Scarborough it is a genuine subject. The town has been frying fish for well over a century and the loyalties run deep — ask five residents and you will get five answers, delivered with feeling.
The broad division is between the seafront shops on Foreshore Road, which do the traditional holiday version at volume and have the view, and the town shops climbing from the harbour into the old town, which are where locals go. The Lifeboat on Eastborough is the most consistently praised of the second group.
Two things separate a good one from a bad one anywhere on this coast: dripping rather than oil, which is the Yorkshire tradition and produces a crisper batter, and fish landed locally rather than frozen. The good shops will tell you which they use if you ask.
Whitby, an hour north, will tell you at length that it does it better. That argument has been running for a hundred years and is not going to be settled here.
Better than the seaside reputation suggests. The Turkish and Mediterranean restaurants in the town centre handle vegetarian cooking as a matter of course rather than as an afterthought, and the newer independent cafés cater properly. The traditional chip shops and seafront cafés are the weakest link, as they are everywhere.
The Lifeboat Fish Bar on Eastborough is the one most often named locally; the Foreshore Road shops do the traditional seafront version.
Lookout on the Pier, on the West Pier among the fishing sheds.
Yes — Askim’s and Lezzet for Turkish and Mediterranean, Licorella and Embers for modern cooking, all in the town centre.
The town does not; the seafront trade thins out. The town-centre restaurants run year-round.
Crema e Cioccolato on Newborough, made on the premises.