SPAIN
Tamarindos, Es Grau, Menorca
On Menorca’s north-east coast, Es Grau is a low-key village with a crescent of darkish sand in a fan-shaped bay, behind which is the s’Albufera des Grau nature reserve. Tamarindos is definitely two locations: as you attain the Mediterranean, look left to see the bar, with shady tables below the timber; look proper for the restaurant, with a terrace on stilts over the duck-egg-blue water.
On the bar, I go for the grilled brioche filled with sobrasada sausage, punchy Mahón cheese and native honey with a glass of local merluzo white wine. In the restaurant, my favorite is the paella with Menorcan crimson prawns, however the artichoke and seaweed model is nice, too. Afterward, you’ll discover me again below the timber with a pomada – Xoriguer gin combined with lemonade and crushed ice.
Paella from €26 per particular person
Annie Bennett
La Mar de Fondo, Playa de Frexulfe, Asturias
On one of many least developed stretches of the Spanish coast sits the beautiful Playa de Frexulfe. It varieties a part of a protected panorama of dunes, cliffs and uncommon coastal flora between the fishing cities of Navia and Puerto de Vega. It’s a uncommon glimpse of what Spain appeared like earlier than tourism; there’s nearly no improvement – aside from one of the best seashore bar ever.
La Mar de Fondo is a creaky picket construction perched on a hill overlooking the close to kilometre-long seashore. The vibe is as laid-back and wild because the panorama. It serves meals and drinks, and although I’ve by no means stayed for a meal, it holds a particular place in my coronary heart because the spot the place I spilled out of my first sleepless evening of van life. The distinction between a smelly mosquito-filled car and a quiet morning espresso, watching the water sparkle by the eucalyptus timber, goes down as one of my favorite journey moments.
Meal about €30
Alyssa McMurtry
Restaurant La Isleta, La Isleta del Moro, Almería
Teetering on a rocky peninsula on the Cabo de Gata coast, jutting out into the Mediterranean, is a tiny, white-washed fishing village, La Isleta del Moro: inhabitants 200. Sleepy and distant, it shot to fame briefly in 2018 when Arnold Schwarzenegger arrived on the town to shoot scenes for Terminator: Dark Fate. Its few buildings are clustered on the waterfront, with Restaurant La Isleta in prime place, perched on the rocks by the jetty. Sitting on the terrace below a palm-thatched roof, you’ll be able to hear the waves lapping beneath you, and watch the fishers haul their boats up the seashore.
My arrival was extra low-key than Arnie’s, arriving on foot whereas strolling the coast, however the timing was good for a sundowner – an ice-cold beer because the sky turned Technicolor over the cliffs. As they are saying in these elements: I’ll be again.
Common meal €50
Lois Pryce
El Refugio, Zahara de los Atunes, Costa de la Luz
With completely framed views of grassy dunes, a sweep of white sand and a sapphire horizon of rippling Atlantic waves, El Refugio is an understated bar-restaurant within the village of Zahara de los Atunes. Wrapped across the easy whitewashed restaurant, a terrace shaded by an immense fig tree presents solar or shadow in addition to salty breezes, which typically whip up wildly. Later, flamboyant sunsets paint the sky.
Meals leans closely on atun rojo (bluefin tuna), wealthy and buttery, the much-prized speciality of this coast ever because the Phoenicians launched the almadraba fishing method 3,000 years in the past. One other native basic is tender, low-fat retinto steak, whereas salads, gazpacho and inexpensive Spanish wines assist propel the primarily hipster clientele by lengthy, lazy afternoons. No bookings although – El Refugio’s burgeoning recognition has led to a waiting-list system on the door.
Three-course lunch about €35, plus wine
Fiona Dunlop
FRANCE
Le Cabanon, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, Provence
You may scent the steaming clams and freshly baked focaccia effectively earlier than you attain the underside of the 100 steps all the way down to Le Cabanon on the Plage du Buse. The bar-restaurant has had a number of administration adjustments since I first visited a decade in the past, however is at all times a superb place for a summertime drink overlooking the protected bay and headland the place designer Eileen Gray constructed her modernist villa, E-1027, and Le Corbusier his picket seashore hut.
Le Cabanon reopened this April with a brand new side-hatch serving coffees, chic gelato and goblets of Aperol spritz to beachgoers. It appears to be like like a beachside conservatory with an open kitchen and a dozen tables upstairs on a shaded terrace. I at all times sit on its big trunk of blanched driftwood to observe the cormorants, kayakers and distant tremendous yachts.
Mains €20-30
Jon Bryant
Le Cabanon de Paulette, Marseille
Le Cabanon de Paulette is a seaside watering gap that hooks you in from the primary sip. It hugs a stone wall above the Plage de l’Abricotier, a small, sandy cove, and each stool has a front-row view of the Mediterranean and close by Frioul islands. Although stylish, the bar has a convivial vibe, and the workers exude the heat of the south.
I like to recommend the fried squid, octopus salad and well-known moules frites de Mamie Paulette (garlic-cream mussels named for the proprietor’s grandmother). Bottles of rosé mirror the blushing sky at sundown, the golden hour that bathes revellers in a beautiful glow whereas being serenaded by guitars. Within the distance, ferries head in direction of Corsica.
Meals €15-20, money solely
Alexis Steinman
Le France, Saint-Marc-sur-Mer, Loire
There’s a seashore on France’s Atlantic coast that is still pricey to many French individuals’s hearts because of its position within the basic 1953 Jacques Tati movie, Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot. The movie follows Tati’s much-loved character as he leaves chaos at each flip of his summer time vacation.
I really like that Monsieur Hulot is well known on the quiet seashore with a bronze statue leaning over the railings in his attribute hands-on-hips type. Beneath, Le France restaurant opens out on to the golden sand, with solar umbrellas and deckchairs giving it a suitably retro really feel. The menu options seafood platters and moules-frites, and the service is laid-back – in step with the vibe of Tati’s dreamy movie.
Mains from €17
Carolyn Boyd
La Cale, Blainville-sur-Mer, Normandy
France’s northern coast, with its stiff breeze and broad sandy seashores, will really feel acquainted to a British viewers – till lunchtime rolls round. Starchy, white-tableclothed eating places serving up elegant platters of fruit de mer are beautiful issues, however typically on vacation you simply need chips on the seashore. Enter La Cale, a seaside shack on Normandy’s Cotentin peninsula, the place you’ll be able to take pleasure in good French cooking along with your ft actually within the sand.
It serves all of the classics, together with platters of oysters and pots of moules with crispy frites, plus sausages and gigots of lamb cooked on the open fireplace, out on a ramshackle terrace that’s all however falling into the dunes. Don’t count on formality – the proprietor is a personality, the loos rustic – and don’t miss the native ciders, or tergoule, a sweetly spiced, very Normande, rice pudding.
Common meal €20-30
Felicity Cloake
L’Oasis, Plomodiern, Brittany
I finished off at L’Oasis by likelihood, however this sensible beachside restaurant on Brittany’s wild Finistère shoreline instantly went to the highest of my checklist of favorite discoveries. A placing yellow stone manor home appears to be like out over the Plage de Pors Ar Vag (Breton for “boat cove”), the start of a 2-mile stretch of sandy seashore. Chilling out on a manicured garden above the lapping waves, diners sip glasses of chilled muscadet wine or artisan cider.
At sundown, the final surfers and household holidaymakers slowly go away the seashore, whereas the restaurant presents memorable native seafood at inexpensive costs. Oysters and langoustines are a should, however extra stunning are the signature juicy palourde clams grilled with garlic and parsley. And the profiteroles topped with scorching chocolate sauce and Chantilly cream are to-die-for.
Three-course menu €27 at lunch, €32 for dinner
John Brunton
Le Marinella, L’Île-Rousse, Corsica
There’s one thing deeply stress-free about sliding your toes into the sand whereas having a lazy lunch and consuming Corsican rosé by the ocean. Le Marinella sprawls throughout the broad expanse of L’Île-Rousse’s seashore on Corsica’s northern Balagne coast, the place there’s additionally a beautiful morning meals market price visiting. When you can sit on one in all Le Marinella’s coated terraces, it’s extra pleasurable to kick off your flip-flops and linger over a moreish Corsican tackle tapas below the shade of a parasol.
Fried balls of brocciu cheese, saucisson, anchovy beignets and tapenade remind me that Corsican delicacies traditionally leans extra inland than in direction of the ocean – piracy made residing on the coast too harmful. However then alongside comes a bowl of mussels in a sea urchin sauce to take me firmly again to the Mediterranean and, ultimately, to one of many restaurant’s sunloungers.
Tapas €22, mussels €20
Mary Novakovich
ITALY
Trattoria Da Patrizia, Naples
Trattoria Da Patrizia is simple to overlook, tucked between the smarter eating places on the peninsula of Megaride, on the Naples seafront. The plastic chairs, chequered paper tablecloths and handwritten menu disguise what I consider to be one of the best (in all its simplicity) seaside lunch spot within the metropolis. One sweltering August, when most Neapolitans had decamped someplace cooler, I discovered myself there nearly every single day in search of refuge: tomato bruschetta to start out, an enormous bowl of spaghetti alle vongole, and a carafe of chilly falanghina white wine.
After lunch, the close by boulders that line the fringes of the promenade make for an ideal sunbed, a lazy doze within the shadow of the majestic Castel dell’Ovo, after which a dip within the sea alongside the raucous scugnizzi – Naples’ beloved road urchins – terrifying anybody who cares to observe as they soar from the footbridge into the nice and cozy shallow water of the Borgo Marinari marina.
Meal from €20
Sophia Seymour
Il Pirata, Termoli, Adriatic coast
From Termoli, capital of Italy’s south-eastern Molise area, the sandy seashore stretches for miles, lined with a paved cycle monitor and footpath. About quarter-hour’ stroll from city is a “free” seashore referred to as Il Fratino, after the plovers that nest there. The September I used to be there the water was clear and alluring, the sand golden and heat. However the actual triumph got here at lunchtime. About 100 metres up the seashore, wanting like an overgrown shepherd’s hut, is restaurant Il Pirata.
Employees settled us on a balcony desk and proceeded to wow us with dish after memorable dish. Mussels pepata (with lemon and black pepper), nice pasta (fish bolognese and masterful linguine with shrimps, lime and pistachio) and roast octopus on broccoli rabe and burrata all went superbly with chilled native trebbiano (white wine). The meal grew to become a household benchmark for beachside lunches. Now, “almost nearly as good as Il Pirata” is reward certainly.
Two programs about €25
Liz Boulter
Bar Piero, Lavagna, Liguria
It’s not Rapallo, seven miles to the north, nor Sestri Levante, 5 to the south. Briefly, it’s not stylish. In Italian, Lavagna means slate, which they had been quarrying in Roman occasions. The seashore is shale, shelving steeply, however the sea is a stunning summery blue.
Proper above the ocean wall, on the promenade, is Bar Piero, a kiosk with white tables below white sunshades. It serves scrumptious contemporary brioches that are inclined to run out after 10am. By 11am, there’s the sound of ice being vigorously shaken for cocktails, the scent of focaccia wafting from the oven. Then all the usual Italian fare at lunch, afternoon beer and spritz, and meat scorching within the seaside nightfall, with the light ebb and circulate of strollers alongside the promenade and the solar melting into sea. Laborious to beat.
Panini about €6
Tim Parks
GREECE
Bardis, Loutraki Bay, Crete
The very best desk I do know is perched over shifting Greek seas and backed by lush inexperienced hillsides. Bardis is a taverna-cum-organic farm in Loutraki Bay, western Crete (inhabitants: three households). That is the place I take guests and Greek pals alike, and all invariably go away raving about it. Husband and spouse Theo and Vasiliki serve up conventional meals, cooked with nice technical ability. Their focus is on freshly caught fish and seafood (strive the fish soup), homegrown greens and meat classics.
It slopes all the way down to a pebble seashore on a gulf the place turtles and dolphins might be seen. Stare to sea, the supply of that seafood; lie in hammocks amongst shade-giving timber. Go early, have breakfast, keep the day (or evening by association). Lounge, lunch, swim, bathe. Don’t go away earlier than dinner.
Meal €25-€30
Susan Smillie
Aperanto Galazio, Varkiza, Athens
Greeks are spoilt for alternative with regards to seashore cafes and tavernas – even within the capital’s seaside suburbs. Aperanto Galazio (The Huge Blue – just like the Luc Besson movie) started because the canteen for the Varkiza Sea Sports activities Membership (which produces Olympic athletes) and morphed into a preferred, unpretentious taverna. It’s good for sunny low season lunches; on blustery days, the waves surge throughout the broad sandy bay and windsurfers velocity by. It can also be a breezy night refuge in a heatwave, when tables with oil lamps are positioned on the shingle and Athenians cool off within the shallows. As you sip chilly beer or an iced ouzo and look out to sea, you’re feeling you’re on an island. The meals is dependable slightly than gourmand, with a standard seafood menu: filleted sardines, calamari, contemporary salads and greens, and do-it-yourself tzatziki.
Meal with wine round €30
Sofka Zinovieff
PORTUGAL
Camaleão Seashore Bar, Ilha da Armona, Algarve
There’s a fork on the boardwalk on the island of Armona, supplying you with the selection to go to the Atlantic seashore, or to the one alongside the sting of the Ria Formosa. Select the left path and you will see that a bar with low chairs within the sand and views out over the dunes to the ocean.
To my thoughts, Camaleão has top-of-the-line seashore bar places on the earth. A lot in order that I purchased a home on this tiny island, only a five-minute stroll from this very spot. It’s the place to drink ice-cold Tremendous Bock, a caipirinha or a pick-me-up espresso martini. The music is a bit tacky lounge-core, however when you’ll be able to hear the ocean and nip all the way down to it to chill off, it’s a small worth to pay. Ilha da Armona is a 15-minute ferry journey from the city of Olhão; Camaleão Seashore Bar is a 20-minute stroll from the ferry.
Audrey Gillan
Few seashore eating places stability Atlantic views and passionately ready, good-value seafood in addition to Chá com Água Salgada, perched on stilts above the jap Algarve’s dunes. My first mouthful at this place – wine-sizzled clams hand-harvested from the close by Ria Formosa pure park’s barrier islands – prompted on the spot devotion.
Then there’s Thai-style tuna tartare with kiwi granita and samphire-infused cataplana, a fish stew steamed within the Algarve’s signature copper cooking pot. To complete, the goat’s cheese ice-cream, carob jam and fig leaf gourd is perfection. Submit-lunch, paddle west to the peninsula seashore the place fishing boats bob beneath a diminutive clifftop fortress on the village of Cacela Velha.
Meals from about €20
Daniel James Clarke
Cal Arrifana, Praia da Arrifana, Algarve
Naming a favorite restaurant when in Portuguese firm is a tense enterprise for expats – solely elevating Cristiano Ronaldo’s retirement carries extra threat. So it was a nice aid to discover a circle of locals nodding with approval just lately as I pledged my devotion to Cal Arrifana on the Algarve’s wild, western Costa Vicentina.
Embracing each sundown from its clifftop perch above the huge golden amphitheatre of Praia da Arrifana, Cal is a stylish upstart in a fishing village well-known for its seafood, catering to a boho crowd with cocktails and playful small plates because it opened in 2022. The mezcal-laced oyster platter, roasted octopus on tender hunks of Algarvian Lira candy potato and goat’s cheese cheesecake with berry sorbet reside on within the reminiscence. I really like how Cal’s shaded terraces pull in board-riders contemporary off the purpose break and hikers traversing the 140-mile Fisherman’s Trail; it looks like a laid-back staging submit for everybody paying their respects to the Atlantic at one in all its most dramatic addresses.
Meals from about €20
Amelia Duggan
Bar Francemar, Praia de Francemar, Porto
The broad, good-looking seashore at Miramar, with its seaside retailers and iconic chapel on the shore, is a pure draw for locals and guests alike. However for a quieter, wilder seashore expertise, head 10 minutes on foot northwards alongside the picket boardwalk to Praia de Francemar. Uncommon for the string of seashores simply to the south of Porto, its shallows are freed from rocks and stones, providing bathers a relaxed – albeit nonetheless chilly – entry into the ocean.
The family-owned Bar Francemar, the one restaurant on this stretch of sandy dunes, is an area favorite for its old-style simplicity. Housed in a blue-painted shack, with an ample adjoining consuming space, it presents a no-frills menu of seafood classics – finest is the bream or, when in season (Could-October), the sardines, that are grilled on a country barbecue. No must e book, however go early for lunch to ensure a seat.
Meals from about €25
Oliver Balch
CROATIA
Banova Villa, Rab, Croatia
On little Sveti Ivan seashore and below the shade of Aleppo pines sits the wilfully ramshackle Banova Villa seashore bar, its muslin-draped pergola roof mixing into the forest behind it. What appears to be like like somebody’s laundry hangs whimsically from the pergola’s beams, above distressed furnishings and chunky, picket tables.
In entrance is a pebbly seashore with sunloungers to lease. When the solar units over Rab’s magnificent Renaissance structure, the tender golden mild bringing greater than a touch of magic, it’s time for me to settle in with an Aperol spritz.
Mary Novakovich
TURKEY
İncekum Seashore, close to Marmaris, Turkey
You’ve actually obtained to need to get to İncekum; it’s about 5 miles off the principle street to Marmaris, by winding nation lanes. As soon as on the shady automotive park, an open-sided shuttle-tractor rumbles by extra woodland to the seashore. However it’s effectively well worth the effort; an remoted curve of effective golden sand and heat, clear water, loungers beneath the timber and cabanas dotted alongside the rocky shoreline.
Inevitably, a spot this lovely does get busy. The restaurant does a pleasant line in basic Turkish dishes; freshly made gozleme filled with cheese or spinach, grilled kofte and tangy hen doner kebabs.
Lunch for 2 from about 910 Turkish lira (£25)
Annabelle Thorpe
IRELAND
Linnane’s Lobster Bar, New Quay, County Clare
Within the minuscule village of New Quay, Linnane’s Lobster Bar is housed in a centuries-old cottage and former submit workplace on the finish of a pier. From the jetty, a small, bone-white sandy cove offers technique to the pale limestone slabs of the Flaggy Shore and broad, open water that shifts from metal gray to turquoise relying on the season. Inside, the bar is low-ceilinged and heat, with pints of Guinness deciding on the bar. A terrace alongside the shoreline appears to be like straight out to the ocean, the place you’ll be able to sit and watch the seascape that was the muse of Seamus Heaney’s poetry.
The menu leans on what’s landed close by. Native lobster is the headline act, served merely with butter or folded into salads and sandwiches. There are additionally mussels, oysters, crab claws and chowder – or a slab of Irish Hereford striploin for devoted carnivores.
Mains €20–€30, extra for lobster or steak
Vic O’Sullivan
UK
Goat Ledge, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex
A trio of brightly colored huts named for the farmers who used to deliver their goats to graze on the seaweed that coated a rocky reef, Goat Ledge is ready proper on the lengthy stretch of shingle seashore, with the city’s Regency terraces unfolding behind. However its shabby-chic vibe belies very good meals and repair.
We got here first for sundown cocktails – perched on sherbet-hued deckchairs, whereas Bob Marley oozed out of the audio system – and have returned for dinners of salmon hash, or glasses of its own-label pale ale with a facet of katsu fries. However for me, there’s nothing to beat the Decimus Burton Breakfast Bap (bacon, egg, chilli jam, mayo and rocket) straight after a summer time dip. Simply be sure you have loads of napkins at hand.
Beers and dinner from about £40
Annabelle Thorpe
Cwt Tatws, Llŷn peninsula, Gwynedd, Wales
The best beachside cafe I ever knew, sadly lengthy disappeared, was salvaged fully from driftwood and outdated fishing nets, the tables an assortment of rickety constructions the place you would stability a tin mug. Cwt Tatws on Porth Towyn seashore has just a little bit of that salty type, though fortunately backed by a totally fashionable {and professional} kitchen, plus an honest store and classic clothes part, too.
Owned and run by S4C presenter Daloni Metcalfe and her husband, Will, this can be a place deeply grounded in the area people – Will’s household have farmed right here for 5 generations. A few hundred metres away is Porth Towyn seashore, a brief and candy curve of golden sand with just a few rocks to cover behind ought to the wind blow (let’s not fake that it doesn’t). It’s a kid-friendly spot and in style with households, however once you’re prepared for refreshments, head again to the cafe for a terrific vary of do-it-yourself sandwiches, salads and desserts with an emphasis on native and Welsh produce.
Sandwich with salad £7.95
Kevin Rushby
Driftwood Cafe, Archirondel, Jersey
Climbing Jersey’s east shore, rounding one other crinkle, I spied the following bay forward. And for a scorching and hungry coast walker, Archirondel was the proper scene. The clear blue sea – wanting extra just like the Mediterranean than the Channel – swished as much as fingers of craggy rock and scoops of flaxen sand. A squabble of gulls dazzled white within the shallows whereas a candy-striped tower (constructed 1792) stood guard.
Tucked behind was the Driftwood Cafe, run by Gabby Mason and her accomplice Leyton Hunnisett, each Jersey-born, each fishers. They deal in sustainably caught fish and seafood from Jersey waters, loads of which make it on to the menu. I flopped on to the terrace with a crab sandwich (£16.50), thick-cut, contemporary and scrumptious.
Sarah Baxter
Drift Cafe, Cresswell, Northumberland, England
My first go to to the lengthy, empty sands of Cresswell seashore, at the beginning of the 62-mile Northumberland Coast Path, was memorable for coastal wildlife – and for do-it-yourself meals on the Drift Cafe. Since autumn 2025, it has been owned by Matt Bishop and Reece Gilkes, who had been the primary individuals to drive around the world by scooter and sidecar. They provide sidecar passenger tours, typically together with afternoon tea on the Drift, in addition to punchy espresso, pies and fry-ups.
There are toasties with slaw, chorizo brunch, gammon broth and all the things is cooked on-site, from cheese scones to rum-raisin brownies. The cafe constructing was as soon as the doorway to Blakemore drift mine, closed within the Nineteen Fifties. The seashore is steps away, by flowering dunes.
Chorizo brunch £12.95
Phoebe Taplin
Namaka, Broadstairs, Kent
The quiet man of the Thanet coast, wedged between stylish Margate and regal Ramsgate, Broadstairs has greater than its fair proportion of excellent locations to eat, however these majestic cliffs imply there aren’t many on its magnificent seashores. In Stone Bay, Namaka, the beach-hut sister to Salt on the Excessive Avenue, is just a little piece of California in Kent, proper all the way down to the surfboard on prime.
Don’t come anticipating fish and chips – Namaka’s menu is heavy on açai bowls and avocado, plus glorious banana bread, smoothies and low to take pleasure in on solar loungers on the sand of what, in my view, is one of the best seashore within the space – broad and spacious and excellent for swimming. Fashionable with early-morning canine walkers grabbing a espresso, it graduates to serving cocktails and desserts to sunbathers and sandcastlers because the solar rises greater within the sky … as a result of as locals not often fail to say, Thanet is formally “the sunniest coastal vacation spot within the UK”.
Breakfast about £15
Felicity Cloake
