Cornwall the beautiful South-west

Cornwall - what images does the name conjure up? Family holidays in caravans or cheap hotels, perhaps, or a stag or hen weekend in Newquay? In the past, maybe those were true - and, of course, Cornwall is still a popular destination for the family summer holiday - but things are changing, thanks largely to two men: Rick Stein and Tim Smit.

Stein, with his passion for cooking and high-profile television series, has put north Cornwall on the map, to the extent that Padstow is now often jokingly referred to as Padstein. Stein has three restaurants and several other hospitality businesses in the town, and is about to move further afield, to Newquay, where he has recently bought the Rocklands hotel.

Further south, in Bodelva, Smit's Eden Project has been pulling in the crowds since 2001. Even Smit must have been taken aback by Eden's success. "Eden full," declared signs by the roadside in the project's opening year. There were other projects, too - the Lost Gardens of Heligan, in St Austell, in which Smit also had a hand, and the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth are among them.

The message is clear - the new, cool Cornwall is no longer just somewhere you go for a week during the peak season. It is now a high-class, year-round destination with lots on offer, even in bad weather.

Hand in hand with high-class tourism developments came the arrival of like-minded operators providing quality accommodation for those wanting to take advantage of Cornwall's renaissance.

Luxury Family Hotels, recognising that there was money to be had from the family market, was one of the forerunners, with Fowey Hall in Fowey. Then came Rocco Forte's sister, Olga Polizzi, with the Tresanton, a boutique hotel in St Mawes - but with London prices. More recent arrivals include the Lugger hotel in Portloe and Hustyns near Wadebridge.

Established properties also upped their game - the Headland hotel in Newquay, for example, has had huge amounts of investment and this year was awarded AA four-star status.

Food has also come on in leaps and bounds. Cornwall now has two Michelin-starred restaurants in the Abbey in Penzance and Ripley's in St Merryn. A clutch of other venues, including the Well House in Liskeard (a former Caterer & Hotelkeeper Adopted Business) and the Tresanton, have three AA rosettes for their cuisine.

Infrastructure is also improving. In the past, one of Cornwall's drawbacks was the road system, which meant frustratingly slow progress once beyond the reach of the motorways. Now, the main A30 road that is the backbone of Cornwall's road network is largely dual carriageway, with the exception of a stretch entering and leaving the county where upgrading is barred by environmentalists, something that continues to frustrate those working in Cornish tourism.

Above ground, budget airline Ryanair operates a twice-daily service from Stansted to Newquay, and although British Airways has decided to axe its Gatwick-Newquay flights from October, other airlines are waiting in the wings to take over this route.

Promoting the new, cool Cornwall is Southwesttourism, the regional tourist board for the South-west of England. Among the better-known attractions, as well as traditional surfing at Newquay, visitors can also choose from wakeboarding, a hybrid of surfing and waterskiing, and coasteering, described by the tourist board as "a crazy blend of climbing, cliff jumping, scrambling and swimming to access caves, plunge pools, and jets of raging white water".

In Cornwall's cream, it appears, there are no clots.

Upping the game… the Armstrongs at Headland Hotel, Newquay

Newquay is one of those places that, in the past, has had a reputation for being a tad on the tacky side. It has long been a favourite haunt for stag and hen weekends, although many hotels and campsites have put an end to such frivolities by banning single-sex parties.

But, as with the rest of Cornwall, the wind of change is blowing through Newquay. New air routes have led to a new kind of customer, with a higher disposable income, flying down for the weekend from London to experience Newquay's magnificent surf without having to brave the vagaries of the roads.

Needless to say, hoteliers have upped their game to take advantage of this new market. Would Rick Stein have bought a hotel in Newquay even five years ago? Probably not.

Carolyn and John Armstrong bought the 105-bedroom Headland hotel in 1987. They used to close for five months of the year as trade was not sustainable outside the peak season, but now it's a different story. The Armstrongs trade year-round, have invested £2m in their bedrooms over the past two winters, and have just been awarded four-star status by the AA.

"It's the Eden Project that has had the biggest effect on our trade," Carolyn says. "Things have never been so good."

Turnover, which back in 1987 was £1m, will reach £4m this year. The Armstrongs have also cottoned on to the notion of offering self-catering accommodation alongside traditional hotel rooms and already have 10 self-catering cottages, with plans to spend £5m over the next two years building a further 30.

Even winter no longer poses the problems it once did. The Armstrongs now market storm-watching weekends - whenever a depression is due to set in, they target people who want to come and watch the waves crash on to the shores.

The tourism product

There are more than 4,300 accommodation outlets in Cornwall, ranging from small B&Bs to bespoke holiday centres. In total, it is estimated that there are more than 76,877 bedspaces, pitches or self-catering units in the county.

In 2001, there were more than five million staying trips made to the county. This equates to more than 24 million staying nights and a spend of about £1,025b.

Some £978m of staying visitor spend can be attributed to UK visitors and £45m to overseas visitors. It is estimated that staying visitors directly and indirectly support 44,955 jobs, some 21% of total employment in the county.

In terms of day visitors, there were an estimated 30,679 day trips to Cornwall in 2001, at a value of £666.2m.

Hustyns

The 10 self-catering lodges and 37 hotel rooms that make up Hustyns, one of Cornwall's newer hotel developments, nestle discreetly in the hills surrounding Wadebridge. The £15m resort, which opened last year, is not quite finished yet - there are plans for a further 17 lodges to open next year.

It's an ambitious resort owned by a group of local businessmen who, spotting a gap in the market for high-quality accommodation, decided to fill it. The result is a very upmarket product with a 20-metre pool and an extensive gym - which attract sports people, who train there and then come back to chill out after big events.

Boxer Michael Watson, for example, now recovered after being knocked into a coma in the ring, walked this year's London Marathon in six days, having trained at Hustyns before the event. He has since been back seven times!

One surprise about this place is the age of the general manager. Katie Richards, who took the job at the start of June, has just turned 24. She started at the hotel as head receptionist and worked her way up to assistant manager before taking the helm.

Despite her youth, she's confident and mature, and chats excitedly about the challenges that lie ahead of her. "I know I'm young but my heart is 110% committed to the job," she says. "It's just a fantastic opportunity for me and, no, I've no desire at the moment to move to the city and progress my career there. I'm a local girl and here I'm staying."

Richards's biggest challenge is to build occupancy. At the moment, occupancy is low, forecast to range from 20% in the low season to 50% at the height of the summer in the hotel rooms, and from 25% to 80% in the lodges. "We're still very new and we need to work hard to put ourselves on the map," she says.

Richards also plans to develop the wedding business. The hotel has six areas licensed for civil weddings and is on the lookout for an events co-ordinator who can tap into this lucrative sector - an average wedding reaps Hustyns £10,000. One of the benefits is that many locals are either employed in or affected by tourism and consequently tend to marry outside the main tourist season - a bonus for Hustyns, which naturally looks to extend its revenue streams for as long as possible.

Hustyns is not just a hotel - the self-catering lodges are an important part of the business proposition. "Versatility is the name of the game," Richards says. "Guests staying in the lodges can stay for a few nights or take the place for a week at a time. They can choose to self-cater or eat in the hotel. And they have access to all the hotel's facilities."

The lodges are luxurious, indeed. They all have three bedrooms and three bathrooms and are furnished to a high standard. Walls are adorned with paintings by Mitch Griffiths, the hotel's prolific resident artist.

At the height of the season, customers can pay as much as £2,000 plus VAT a week for a three-bedroomed unit, compared with £90 per person per night plus VAT for a double room and breakfast in the main hotel. Timeshare is even under consideration for the future.

Soon, the Hustyns empire will expand. The group behind the venture has just bought the St Moritz near Daymer Bay on the north Cornish coast. The existing 48-bedroom hotel will be knocked down to make way for a new hotel, and there will also be 36 lodges.

The stein factor

Cornwall. Fish. Rick Stein. That's the word association that most people, if asked, would come up with. And it's almost entirely due to the popularity of Stein's numerous television series over the past eight years.

Stein had, of course, been running his Seafood Restaurant in Padstow for 20 years before TV celebrity hit in 1995. But he had remained a foodie and industry secret until that point. The feverish interest sparked off by his original Taste of the Sea series is recalled vividly by Paul Ripley, who before setting up his own Michelin-starred restaurant headed Stein's brigade at the Seafood Restaurant for 10 years.

"I came into work the day after the first programme went out and there must have been 100 people outside the restaurant just touching the building. It was amazing," he says.

The interest in exploring Padstow - and by association the rest of Cornwall - has not abated. By putting Padstow on the culinary map, Stein lifted the county's image above the fish and chips and ice-cream expectations of the baby boomer generation.

He himself has capitalised on the public's appetite for all things "Padstein". His business empire now encompasses a cookery school, café, delis, the 10-bedroom St Petroc Hotel and Bistro and the six-bedroom St Edmund's House (all in Padstow); plus the newly acquired Rocklands hotel in nearby Newquay.

Rocklands, due to open next year after a £600,000 refurbishment, is a bit of a gamble - Newquay is a scruffy surfers' paradise without the fishing village quaintness of Padstow. However, with 200,000 people predicted to pass through Newquay's airport in 2003, Stein my be about to apply the Stein Factor to Cornwall's surf capital.

Pate, 42, lived in Devon between the ages of 12 and 19, so making the move out of London wasn't a difficult decision. "I always said I'd try and get down West again and there's a real buzz in Cornwall at the moment - I wasn't going to miss this opportunity," he says.

"With Rick being down here, it attracts quality people into the area. He has done a lot for the local economy. He has made people living and visiting here want quality food outlets." That's an opinion shared by Ripley and another ex-Stein employee, Nathan Outlaw, who has just set up shop as a chef-proprietor across the Camel estuary in Rock. "There's no doubt that because of Rick, people down here are prepared to pay a bit extra," Outlaw says.

Stein's pÆ'tisserie will open seven days a week, initially between 10am and 5.30pm, and will have a counter at which customers can have a coffee and, of course, a cake or two. In addition to running the pÁ¢tisserie operation, Pate, who heads a brigade of two, will also get involved in training, both for the businesses and for Stein's cookery school. He's also hoping to establish links with local colleges.

The Michelin Scene

Rick Stein may have put Padstow on the culinary map, but it was his former head chef, Paul Ripley, who got the town its first Michelin star when his restaurant, Ripley's, gained the accolade in the 2003 Red Guide. But his wasn't the only starry restaurant this year - he was joined in that elite club by another Cornish eaterie, the Abbey in Penzance, under chef-patron Ben Tunnicliffe.

Both men were on holiday (Ripley in the USA, Tunnicliffe in Egypt) when they heard the news of their achievement - and both were totally shocked. "Michelin wasn't on my agenda at all," says 38-year-old Ripley, "so getting the star was a shot out of the blue. My butcher phoned at about 6am US time and it really took a while to sink in."

Tunnicliffe's reaction was similar. "I said, ‘No way!' when a friend phoned up with news. I couldn't sleep that night - a Michelin star is every chef's dream but I never thought I'd get one."

Is this false modesty? No, rather the mistaken assumption that Michelin always recognises fine-dining restaurants serving slightly tricksy French-based cuisine - which neither Ripley's nor the Abbey does. Instead, the two excel in putting out simply presented food - Ripley's specialises in fish (Ripley was head chef at Stein's Seafood Restaurant for 10 years), the Abbey in modern English fare.

The secret to the cooking at both restaurants is the quality of seasonal produce, sourced as close to home as possible. "I put a lot of effort into going out and finding local suppliers," admits 32-year-old Tunnicliffe. "And 95% is Cornish."

Obviously, fish is no problem: like Ripley, he uses Newlyn's fish market (Ripley also sources from Looe), while meat comes through his butcher at St Just, 10 miles down the road, and is all Cornish-reared. Ripley, being further to the north-east of the county, gets Launceston-reared beef and lamb.

When it comes to sourcing fruit, herbs, veg and dairy produce, both Ripley and Tunnicliffe can take advantage of the fact that they run small restaurants (Ripley's seats 32, the Abbey 26) with no need to place big orders that small market gardeners can't cope with. "We advertised for local fruit and veg, flowers, eggs and cheese when we set up," says Ripley. "Now we get people bringing in baskets of fruit and veg from allotments. It's fantastic."

Here's a taste of what the local larder translates into on Ripley's menu. Salad of crab, pink grapefruit and avocado; fresh pea and mint soup; roast loin of new-season lamb, mint hollandaise, lyonnaise potatoes; John Dory with saffron mash, sweet red peppers; and summer pudding with fruit coulis and double cream.

And at the Abbey? Dishes such as seared scallops with broad beans, mint and vermouth; home-smoked chicken with guacamole; roast chump of lamb, sweetbreads and wild mushrooms; roast monkfish tail, langoustine and basil risotto; and chocolate souffl‚ with Calvados ice-cream.

Another advantage of being small is that they do not need large kitchen brigades (they both have just one other chef with them in the kitchen) and can bypass all the staffing headaches that plague many larger restaurants.

Keeping small, not being over-ambitious too early and growing business organically are obviously the keys to success for Ripley and Tunnicliffe. Michelin certainly thinks so. But are there any other future stars in Cornwall - or are they lone beacons?

Ripley points to a former colleague, Nathan Outlaw, who has just opened in Rock, on the north side of the Camel estuary opposite Padstow, as being a likely candidate. Outlaw worked as Ripley's sous chef at the Seafood Restaurant, helped him to open Ripley's two years ago and has since been working with Michelin-starred chef John Campbell - first at Lords of the Manor in Gloucestershire, then at the Vineyard at Stockcross, Reading. He certainly has the talent and pedigree (see above).

But Michelin can be a double-edged sword. It brings in the foodie crowd (Ripley's is booked out for July, August and much of September: the Abbey has had almost full houses since February and is booked up to a month ahead for weekends), but it does set the nerves jangling. Will the star be retained in the next Red Guide?

"Every customer's a potential Michelin inspector now, but I'm hoping if we get through the next year and keep the star, then I'll start to relax again," Tunnicliffe says.

• Coming up in the next three months:
  Exclusive features on Paul Ripley, Ben Tunnicliffe, Nathan Outlaw and Rick Stein.

Nathan Outlaw

Life has been a bit hectic for 25-year-old Nathan Outlaw recently. Not only has he opened his first restaurant (initially with only himself in the kitchen), but he has also become a father for the first time. Between the demands of the two, Outlaw is averaging only two or three hours' sleep a night.

To say he's thriving on it would be wrong. But compensation for his lack of shut-eye has been supplied by the fact that the restaurant has enjoyed an unbelievable run of success since it opened on 20 May.

Here's the lowdown: it's called the Black Pig, it's in Rock on the north Camel estuary, it seats 30, it cost Outlaw and his business partners (brother-in-law Colin Morris and Morris's partner Nicola Tigwell) £90,000 for a 15-year lease plus £110,000 on refurbishment, and it serves the contemporary cuisine that Outlaw learned as head chef under John Campbell at Reading's Vineyard at Stockcross.

More importantly, nine weeks after opening, it has already turned the trio a profit of £6,000. Not only that, but four weeks in, a Michelin inspector was spotted in the dining room, and Outlaw has been invited to Switzerland in September to promote Cornwall and the South-west at a food festival being staged at Globus (Switerland's answer to Harrods). He follows in the not inconsiderable footsteps of such internationally renowned chefs as Neil Perry, Ferran Adri… and Charlie Trotter - not a bad way to spread the word about your first venture.

Will he live up to the hype? The chances are, yes. He has done his homework on the area - not only did he work at the Seafood Restaurant and Ripley's before heading east two years ago, but his wife's family come from the area, so he knows the local supply network. And he has already sourced new local producers, including a farmer in Tregorrick (25 minutes away from Rock) who's set to supply him with pork from the Cornish "large black" pig - a neat tie-in with the restaurant's name, of course, but more importantly a sweet and succulent pork to eat.

Why Rock, though? "It's called ‘Kensington on Sea' and it's mega rich - lots of very wealthy yachters and weekenders," says Outlaw. "People such as Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes, Earl Spencer - even Jamie Oliver!" Not a bad customer base, then. And he already has about an 80% ratio of locals to visitors.

But why Cornwall in the first place (apart from family ties)? "There's a lot of opportunity down here and the quality of life is just better," he says. "Everybody's really friendly. It's much more of a community. Even now, when I hardly have any time off, I know I can just go for a walk on the beach in five minutes. And I know that though I'll get hammered in the summer, there'll be a wind-down in the winter when I can relax a bit.

"I don't regret the move at all. It's the best one I've ever made."

• Outlaw's opening menu tempted diners with dishes such as beetroot risotto with dill and whisky-cured salmon, horseradish foam; crisp pork belly, scallop, cauliflower purée, red onion marmalade and spinach; elderflower cream, apple sorbet and English toffee jelly.