News from Budock Vean
For the Love of Food!
Our wonderful chefs and catering team at Budock Vean are passionate about the dishes that they create daily for our guests. They put a great deal of time and thought into sourcing the very best that Cornwall has to offer – the riches of land and sea – and showcasing those ingredients on our menus!
And as each meal we serve is a celebration of this amazing Cornish produce we thought we would take a moment to introduce you to some of the wonderful local businesses behind it all!
They care as deeply as we do about the land, the environment and supporting fresh, local produce!
Brian Etherington Meat Company, Scorrier
For three generations the Etherington family have been supplying Cornwall with the highest quality meat. Based at Wheal Rose in Scorrier, today the business employs some 50 local people, including ‘the Crimpets’ who hand make around 1000 pasties every single day!
Since 1954 the family have been passionate about provenance and all their meat is locally sourced from trusted Cornish farmers. Etherington’s produce beef, pork and lamb for Budock Vean’s restaurant.
If you fancy having a go yourself, Etherington’s have also been running bespoke butchery courses with their expert staff since 2012. Students can learn everything from making sausages to filleting the finest cuts of beef.
Matthew Stevens Cornish Fish
Based in the popular fishing village of St Ives the Stevens family have a long history with the sea. Five generations of the family have been fishermen in the waters around Cornwall, a heritage that is hard to match and impossible to put a value on.
The current Stevens in charge, Matthew, took steps to diversify the business to secure their future and opened their first factory in 1995. Since then they have been supplying local business like ours across Cornwall, as well as some famous names such as Jamie Oliver and Rick Stein. They have even provided fish to 10 Downing Street!
Whether it is mackerel, stone bass, bream or scallops they can be relied upon to provide the Budock Vean with the best that the Cornish waters have to offer!
Constantine Stores
The tiny rural village of Constantine, tucked away in the countryside some six miles from Falmouth down narrow winding roads, is perhaps the last place that you would expect to find the largest supplier of wines and spirits in the southwest!
But anyone who has ever visited Constantine Stores is blown away by the Aladdin’s cave they find hiding at the back of this unassuming village shop! They are famed nationally for their collection of over 1000 varieties of whisky, but it doesn’t stop there, there are over 550 different gins (the largest selection in the South-west), 400 different rums and 100 plus cognacs! Constantine Stores are also Cornwall’s leading wine merchant with over 1500 wines from inexpensive every-day tipples to luxury vintage Grand Cru’s!
It is safe to say that the bar staff at Budock Vean have their work cut over deciding on the best selection for our guests!
Trewithen Dairy, Glynn Valley
Situated in the rich farmland of the Glynn valley near Lostwithiel, the Clark family have been running a dairy farm since 1976 and started creating their own delicious products in 1994. They began by bottling their own milk and then moved on to cooking their own clotted cream.
With its unmistakable golden crust and luxuriously rich flavour, Trewithen Dairy Cornish Clotted Cream is now an award-winning product and an essential element of any proper Cornish cream tea! As well as milk and clotted cream, the dairy also produces yoghurt and butter, all with the same rich, luxurious qualities.
Since those early days when they were bottling their own milk by hand while their children slept, what began as a small family business has grown into a household name and now employs 250 staff. Despite their success their core values have stayed the same, however. The Clarks come from a long line of farmers who have worked on this land, and they are passionate about supporting other Cornish herds. They source all their milk from 25 farms within 25 miles of Trewithen – they only use Cornish milk to makes the finest Cornish dairy products. And it shows!
Trenance Chocolate, Mullion
The tiny harbour of Mullion on the Lizard coast seems an unlikely place for a chocolate factory, but Trenance Chocolate have been producing their own delectable delights from there since 1999.
The factory, which is open to the public, was the brainchild of the Raftery family, with their son, Jonathon, training as a chocolatier, and the family converting some old farm buildings for the venture.
These days they supply shops, hotels and restaurants across Cornwall and beyond with their luxury handmade chocolates, made from the finest couverture chocolate sourced from Belgium.
Roskilly’s Ice Cream, The Lizard
Another Lizard business, Roskilly’s Farm is a working organic dairy farm that produces its own ice cream. Using milk and cream from their own Jersey herd they make a delicious range of ice creams, sorbets and frozen yoghurts.
There are more than 20 flavours to choose from, each produced using, wherever possible, locally sourced ingredients. Whether it is Cornish Golden Fudge flavour or Blackcurrant Cheesecake each scoop is made with Cornish milk and a lot of love!
The first owners, Joe and Rachel, inherited the farm in 1950 and as well as the milking parlour, that processes 450,000 litres of milk each year, they also make fudge, jams, chutneys and mustards.
The farm is open to the public, so once you have tried their ice cream at the Budock Vean Hotel you could also sample a few more flavours in their Croust House ice cream parlour!
Cornwall Fish Direct, Newlyn
Offering over 35 different species of fresh and sustainable fish, Cornwall Fish Direct supply many restaurants and fish mongers using their own boats, Stelissa and Silver Dawn.
This all means that the fish that we serve in the Budock Vean can go from sea to plate in just a matter of a few hours – you can’t get much fresher than that!
Cornish Orchards, Duloe
Andy Atkinson arrived at Westnorth Manor Farm near Looe with his herd of dairy cattle in the spring of 1992 and, keen to diversify and rejuvenate the ground, planted three orchards on the farm. To his surprise he soon had one of the largest collections of Cornish apple varieties in the country and gave up milking in favour of juicing.
Enthused by his first crop of apples Andy decided to juice and blend the fruit. And as his hand labelled Cornish apple juices were a great success, he decided to try making the first Cornish Orchards cider the following year.
Today the Cornish Orchards team has over 25 local staff, all working hard to create full-of-flavour, whole fruit drinks and award-winning ciders. One thing that makes their drinks so tasty is that they still believe that Mother Nature knows best, none of the production processes are forced – the fruit ripens naturally and is hand graded, and the fermentation of their cider harnesses the cool, ambient temperatures of Cornwall’s winter months rather than using temperature-controlled technology.
The results may be slower, but we would argue that they are worth the wait!
West Country Fruit Sales, Higher Argal
Amazingly the history of West Country Fruit Sales dates back to the middle of the nineteenth century when Falmouth was a thriving port with ships arriving from all over the world and the re-supply of those vessels with fresh produce was of crucial importance.
Fast forward 150 or more years and West Country is still at the very heart of the local supply chain, distributing produce to caterers and retailers across the southwest, as well as re-stocking the occasional superyacht and cruise ship!
If it is fresh and local it will be on one of their vans. They work closely with an extensive network of farmers and growers to source as much local produce as possible for us at Budock Vean.
From staple root vegetables like potatoes, parsnips and swede, through to alliums and brassicas like kale, cabbages and cauliflower. The spring and summer harvests mean tempting salad leaves, juicy berries, summer greens and specialist market garden crops, including some of the wonderful soft fruit grown right here in Cornwall. All of which are an essential part of our seasonally changing menus.
St Austell Brewery
St Austell Brewery is one of the oldest and most successful businesses in Cornwall. Back in 1851 the founder, Walter Hicks, mortgaged his farm for £1500 to set up a brewery. He started with just one pub, the Seven Stars in St Austell, but the family business quickly grew and expanded beyond his wildest dreams.
With the sudden death of Walter’s only son in a motorcycle accident in Helston the business passed to his daughter, Hester.
Hester Parnall, who was chairman of the company until her death in 1939, went everywhere with her pair of Pekinese dogs and was a clever businesswoman with a fearsome reputation. Legend has it that the first person to spot her chauffeur-driven Daimler arriving in the brewery yard would tap on the water pipes, telegraphing a message across the brewery that alerted everyone to be on their best behaviour.
Since those humble beginnings St Austell Brewery has gone from strength to strength and now owns 190 pubs across Cornwall as well as supplying numerous hotels and restaurants such as our own.
Their roots run deep in Cornwall as do our own!
Find out more about St Austell Brewery HERE
Celtic Fish and Game, St Ives
Run by a family of food lovers since 1985 Celtic Fish & Game is based in St Ives but uses local knowledge to source the very best products from across Cornwall.
The business began by sourcing fresh fish from fishing boats in St Ives and then from Cornish fish markets in Newlyn, Looe & Mevagissey, as well as wild seasonal game from local estates. Celtic Fish and Game produce duck, venison, smoked haddock, kippers, guinea fowl and pigeon for the Budock Vean’s restaurant.
They now offer up to 35 different species of fish daily, some of which is still supplied from small boats arriving at the picturesque harbour of St Ives.
Other honourable mentions:
There are just so many local businesses that we use and love and who contribute to our amazing kitchens but here are a few more that we couldn’t miss giving a mention:
Colin Carter Egg’s, Perranwell – this family run business has been producing free range eggs on the farm for over 100 years. Happy hens produce tasty eggs!
Cornish Coffee, Redruth – the first company in Cornwall to begin hand-roasting coffee beans. Their meticulous roasting process, years in perfecting, creates unbeatable coffee.
M Yates & Sons, Newquay – traditional family-run butchers since 1979.