1st December 2006
Relish Food & Drink, Wadebridge's new gourmet grocer and café, opens on 6th December.
A St Columb couple hope to spark a fine food revolution in Wadebridge with the opening of a new gourmet café and fine food grocer next week - and are promising to serve some of the best-made coffee in the country.
Relish Food & Drink will open on Wednesday 6th December following a £75,000 refurbishment of the Foundry Court premises, which includes a 40 seat café and courtyard, and separate grocer with a well-stocked delicatessen counter.
Relish’s Sarah Townsend and Hugo Hercod were keen to set up a business close to their St Columb home, and Wadebridge was their ideal choice.
“We’ve spent over a year trying to secure this location because we really wanted to run a business in Wadebridge,” said Hugo. “It’s a real Cornish town which has the best shopping on the north coast. It’s where local people go to shop all year round, and there is less reliance on the tourist trade than Padstow or Newquay.
“Foundry Court is a fantastic location - the courtyard is an oasis of calm away from the hustle and bustle of town, and it’s a beautiful place to relax and enjoy some good food or a cup of coffee.”
With over 35 years of combined experience working in the food, restaurant and hospitality industry - much of it in Cornwall - Hugo and Sarah are well placed to ensure their customers enjoy only genuine good food of exceptional taste and integrity.
Hugo is a self-confessed coffee freak - he is ranked amongst the top eight baristas in the country having competed in the finals of the 2006 UK Barista Championships, where making espresso-based coffee is taken to the level of an art form.
Sarah’s last job as Rick Stein’s Retail Operations Manager saw her taste hundreds of gourmet foods, and she will be using her good relationships with suppliers to make sure the grocer and deli counter is stocked with only the finest quality produce.
“We’re huge fans of real food, where produce is grown, made or prepared purely for its taste and flavour,” said Sarah. “We want Relish to be a real food experience, where people can come and eat and drink delicious food, and take home fantastic ingredients to create great, nutritious real meals.
“Rick Stein coined the phrase “food heroes”; our food, for the most part comes from people worthy of that name. We like organic, we like local, we like a healthy provenance. But most importantly, we like tasty.”
As well as stocking the best from local and regional food producers, Relish also source unique foods from all over the world, along with books, cookware and a selection of wines and unusual culinary alcohols.
Stocking seasonal produce is a top priority, and customers will be actively encouraged to taste the food so that they can buy with confidence, knowing that their purchase is something that suits their tastes.
Wherever possible food is sourced from smaller producers who know exactly what goes into their produce to make it taste great. There will also be the opportunity for customers to find out more from the suppliers themselves at ‘Meet The Producer’ days, where the producer will come in and offer tasters.
“We hope that Relish will become a local’s favourite, a place for ladies to lunch, an avid cook’s store cupboard, and a destination food and drink experience,” said Sarah. “Relish will appeal to the senses: we will have the smell of freshly baked bread, ground coffee, squeezed oranges, rich dark chocolate, smoky paprika, aromatic spices, pungent cheeses and cured meats.”
The café will serve simple dishes with many of the ingredients taken from the shop. One unique feature of the menu will be tasting plates prepared straight from the delicatessen counter; they will allow customers to sample a range of foods they may not be familiar with, compare flavours of similar foods directly, and discover their favourite cheeses, cured meats, olives, oils and vinegars from the finest producers.
Vegetarians will be well catered for with a wide selection of meat-free dishes always on the menu. For Sarah, eating out as a vegetarian in Cornwall has often been a frustrating experience, and one she is keen to change at Relish.
“We want to offer meals that even meat eaters won’t notice are vegetarian - traditionally a byword for bland and unadventurous. We will be offering much more than caramelised onion and goats cheese tart,” said Sarah.
Open from 8.00am for breakfast, the cafe will serve a healthy and tasty breakfast menu including eggs benedict; french toast served with maple syrup and sweet-cured crispy bacon; and granola with fruit compote and yohgurt - accompanied by a perfect coffee or freshly-squeezed orange juice - to eat in or take away.
A typical lunch menu will include genuinely home-made soups; hot roast beef and horseradish sandwich; and roast butternut, feta and tomato salad with a hazlenut dressing. ‘Grab and go’ sandwiches, juices and salads will be available from the shop all day for those who have to eat on the hoof.
Relish’s other big speciality - and Hugo’s passion - is coffee, which will be served throughout the day accompanied by a mouth-watering selection of sumptuous cakes, muffins and fresh pastries as well as ice cream from Roskillys.
Relish will be a ‘third wave’ coffee shop, specialising in espresso-based coffee made by a barista who has spent many months learning to master the remarkably complicated art of getting the maximum flavour from the coffee bean into the final drink.
Hugo explains: “The third wave coffee shop is a relatively recent concept, and marks a big step up in quality from the rash of franchised outlets where staff are given little or no training in using the espresso machines.
“Our coffee is supplied by Origin, a Cornish company, and is fair trade organic from Papua New Guinea. We use 100% Arabica and it will be as fresh as we can get it. We also plan on being one of the only coffee shops in Cornwall to make decaffeinated coffee from whole beans - we have sourced a mellow blend of Central American beans which are decaffeinated whole by a special steaming process. This means that our decaf is ground fresh and extracted with all the care of normal coffee.”
Relish Food & Drink is open Monday to Saturday from 8.00am for breakfast until 6.00pm. Closed Sunday. Lunch is served from midday until late afternoon.
ENDS
Notes For Editors
Relish Food & Drink opened in December 2006 following a £75,000 refurbishment of the Foundry Court premises, which includes a 40 seat café and courtyard, and separate grocer with a well-stocked delicatessen counter.
Relish Food & Drink aim to be as environmentally sensitive as possible. Wherever possible, the packaging used is bio-degradable/compostable and in some instances made from recycled products. Only environmentally friendly chemicals are used for cleaning, while heating and lighting systems are as energy efficient as possible.
The Relish logo, a fern, is a representation of latté art: the mark of a quality cup of coffee. Barista and co-proprietor Hugo Hercod, a finalist in the 2006, 2007 and 2008 UK Barista Championships, is among the top five coffee-makers in the country. He also competed as part of the UK team in the European Team Coffee Challenge, held in Moscow in October 2007. Says Hugo: “If you are drinking a cup of coffee which the barista has taken the trouble to make look nice, then you know it’s going to be good.”
Relish Food & Drink, Foundry Court, Wadebridge. Telephone: 01208 814214.
Winter opening hours (until Easter): 9.00am to 5.00pm, Monday to Saturday. Closed Sunday.
Media Contact - PR on behalf of Relish Food & Drink.
For more information and images contact: Jim Michell at Barefoot Media.
Telephone: +44 (0)1208 895089 Email: jim@barefootmedia.co.uk |
