Farm, Field and Seas
Our Food & Drink
There’s something fresh happening on Falmouth’s burgeoning food scene, where local boy and Executive Head Chef Darren Millgate has used lockdown to transform the St Michaels dining experience into a laid-back tour of Cornish farms, field and seas.There’s something fresh happening on Falmouth’s burgeoning food scene, where local boy and Executive Head Chef Darren Millgate has used lockdown to transform the St Michaels dining experience into a laid-back tour of Cornish farms, field and seas.
Darren leans out of the smoke to swig his beer, frowning at the artisan-beverage label “well that’s an interesting one”. And then it’s back into the riot of sizzle and steam on his alfresco grill. We’re under a canopy of swaying palms in the subtropical gardens that surround the resort, facing a shimmering Falmouth Bay on a breezy day.
Back on home turf, Darren brings it back to his passion, Cornwall’s abundant natural larder “One of my earliest memories was going out with my dad on our boat at Portholland to pull up the net and see what we had for dinner. Sometimes it was mackerel, or fiddly spider crabs, occasionally bass, the excitement of not knowing what would be in the net, that still guides me today. It’s far more important than the flamboyance (and waste) of a fine-dining operation.”
Darren wolfs down his own helping of steaming grilled fish and looks out to sea, “Whatever time you visit us, our local food heroes (and their produce) will be firmly in the spotlight, and you can be sure that even if there isn’t space to say it on the menu, pretty-well everything on your plate comes with a local story.”