Food for Thought: Emily Scott

Virginia Woolf once asked herself, “why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall?” But with its golden bays, translucent seas, jutting cliffs and pictorial light is it any wonder the Cornish coastline has seduced writers like Virginia Woolf, artists such as Ben Nicholson and, more recently, chefs like Emily Scott. In 2000, Scott met her then-husband – a local fisherman in Port Isaac – and fell head-over-heels with the magnetic charm of the Atlantic coast of North Cornwall. She has not left the shore since. 

Scott made a name for herself as a chef in the South West, working in various kitchens, from The Harbour to the St Tudy Inn. This Monday, she will fulfil her lifetime ambition of opening up her own restaurant, Emily Scott Food, which will celebrate Cornish cuisine in a paradisal setting overlooking Watergate Bay Beach near Newquay. 

Scott’s culinary journey first began, 996 miles away, in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France. “My grandparents lived in the most amazing place, in a villa up in the mountains,” says Scott as she recalls the lively dinners with her thespian family. “I can almost smell each season as the food always reflected what time of year it was. There would be Christmas parties in the winter and long lunches in the summer. There were endless drinks parties with lots of actors smoking and drinking far too much. I remember cigarette ash dropping on our heads, which sounds terrible, but I have memories of it being so joyful.” 

The theatrics of bringing people together to laugh, drink and revel would become Scott’s core ethos, but it was only after battling an eating disorder in her teens that she started seeing food as an ally instead of the enemy. Her first job was as a 16 year-old at a provincial restaurant in Burgundy, France, then she went onto  receive formal training at the Tante Marie Cookery Academy in Woking. It wasn’t until she met her fisherman husband at the dawn of the millennium that she decided to take the plunge to move to Cornwall, and from there her career blossomed by the sea.

Scott ran The Harbour Restaurant in Port Isaac for over six years, and in 2013, she was named in Best Chef South West by Food Magazine and nominated as a Local Food Hero. In 2014, she built an impressive reputation heading the kitchen at the St Tudy Inn; in 2017, she and her team were awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Scott then took over at the former Fifteen Cornwall building, with her pop-up Emily Scott Food. Her hyper-local cuisine was so successful that she has now taken up a permanent residency at Watergate Bay with Emily Scott Food. She has also been named in CODE’s 100 most inspirational women in the hospitality industry. 

Despite possessing an impressive CV, Scott is markedly humble and, at times, self-deprecating: “Having the restaurant called Emily Scott Food was a huge deal for me as I’m quite happy being behind-the-scenes,” she tells me. “I’ve always been someone with a lot of self-doubt, I know I can do things well, but I’m always thinking about how I can do it better.”

The design of Emily Scott Food, however, means there will be nowhere left for her to hide. “The open kitchen is in the middle of the restaurant, so it can bring everything we do into one space – which is great but it means there’s nowhere for me to go!” she laughs. “The restaurant is built into the sea wall and has a dreamlike panoramic view of the ocean. The Harbour was right on the seafront, and so I’m thrilled to be back by the sea again as I love Cornwall’s connection between the land and the sea. I feel fortunate to be doing what I do.”

Scott explains how the menu at Emily Scott Food is primarily seasonal and sustainable, only serving seafood, fish, and vegetables – sourced from within a 10-mile radius. “I love fish and seafood, and I like to cook with the ebb-and-flow of the year, and so I stick to that,” she says. “We get our fish from Padstow, and what will come in that day will be served – whether that’s line-caught mackerel or lobster. You won’t find any strawberries in my restaurant unless it’s June, and you won’t find blackberries in my recipes until September.”

Her menu is stripped-back and simple; visiting at lunch means a chance to try scallops roasted in their shell with truffle butter, cornish crab with brown butter hollandaise and pickled kohlrabi; summer melon curry with high note herbs and coconut and crushed cucumber, Cornish sole with seaweed butter and sea herbs, fig tart and crème fraiche and Vanilla seeded panna cotta with apricots and chocolate sauce. 

If that isn’t enough to leave you satiated, Scott is releasing her debut cookbook Sea & Shore: Recipes and Stories from a Kitchen in Cornwall, on 10 June. The book is a medley of recipes and anecdotal vignettes about Scott’s early years up until now. “Each story has a short essay,” she says, “for example, a recipe for cherries and elderflower vanilla ice cream reminds me of my Grandfather sucking off the flesh of a cherry, leaving the stalk and stone intact. It’s little stories like that, that remind me of places, smells and memories.”

Other stories range from Scott remembering Friday nights on the Platt Port Isaac, listening to the Fisherman’s Friends sing (her ex-husband John founded and sang in the famous shanty band) to rock-pooling with her children and drinking wine in Burgundy with her partner who owns a vineyard in Bordeaux. 

To accompany such stories, there are recipes in the book for crab linguine, tarte tatin and fish stew with saffron, aioli and crostini. A personal favourite for Scott is her recipe for a cucumber sandwich: “It may seem a bit silly, but a cucumber sandwich just reminds me of my father and my son Oscar eating them on the beach for his birthday.”

With an upcoming summer filled with park picnics and sandy staycations, it seemed a civic duty to ask the chef for the secret to the perfect cucumber sandwich. “Unsalted butter, really lovely white bread, skin off the cucumber, poppy seeds and Cornish sea salt flakes.” – tupperware at the ready.

For Emily Scott’s last ever supper, she picks a starter of roast asparagus with crème fraiche and parmesan, crab linguine for her main and a fresh white peach for pudding. To drink, a glass of white burgundy. 

At the time of writing, it is a week until Scott throws open the doors of Emily Scott Food. Predictably, she has a few butterflies in her stomach but can’t wait to provide a space for families and loved ones to reunite. “After being apart from the past year, I want people to come together and enjoy the food and wine. I want to have people thinking it was as lovely an experience as they thought it would be. If they leave thinking that, well, I’ve done my job.”

You can book a table at Emily Scott Food here. 

Lemon and Rosemary cake
serves 10

Ingredients:

175g softened butter, plus extra for greasing
175g caster sugar 
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons 
2 eggs
75ml milk
175g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
2 tbsp finely chopped rosemary 

Method:

Preheat the oven to 170C/gas 3. 

Line the bottom of a loaf tin with baking paper.

Beat the softened butter & sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add the lemon zest and rosemary and whisk well until fully incorporated. 

Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition, then add the milk. 

Sift the flour and baking powder together and gently fold into the mixture until well combined. 

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and level off the top. 

Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and leave the cake to cool in the tin for 10-15 minutes, before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling. 

When the cake is completely cool, transfer to a serving plate. Dust with icing sugar. Slice and serve with clotted cream and decorate of course with rosemary.