Special Dispatch: The Kitchen, Polperro

The Kitchen
The Coombes
Polperro
Cornwall
PL13 2RQ
01503 272 780

by Des Ayuno

A week in a quaint, isolated Cornish fishing village with eight dear old friends had sounded so wholesome and jolly a month ago but, pace Deliverance, there remained on the last morning only three of us, exhausted and liverish, vowing never to speak again of our time in Polruan. After an emotional farewell evening featuring twelve pints, four bottles of wine and six hours’ sleep between us, it was imperative that D, the driver, at least attempt to bring his blood-alcohol levels in line with legal limits. We’d heard about nearby Polperro’s picturesque charms and pootled over at about 12mph. Disdaining the first café we passed, whose violent pink interior and curtains reminded D of Pepto-Bismol and, therefore, the sorry state of his lower intestine, we soldiered on down to the punishingly blustery front. Everything, of course, was shut. We marched back along the winding streets, bellowing apposite Fall lyrics into the wind (“I hate the countryside, so much-ah!”) and sheepishly settled into The Kitchen’s Ikea-pine chairs. Our bullheaded explorations meant we’d missed the breakfast menu by five minutes; eyelash-batting at Harry, the proprietor, failed to persuade him to break the rules for us. I hate the country people, so much-ah.

But soft! what egg on yonder all-day menu breaks? It is scrambled eggs on muffins with smoked salmon. And what creamy, silken scrambled eggs! What gorgeous, locally smoked, substantially heaped-up salmon! What carefully toasted, generously buttered, light-as-air pillows of muffins! What heady espresso! It was as delightful a breakfast as one could hope to find at the best of times and twice the price in London. Suddenly desperate to return to civilisation, we threw down our money and left. Thank god for rural gentrification.