Rick Stein is a renowned English celebrity chef, restaurateur, author, and television presenter, celebrated for his passion for fresh seafood and coastal cuisine. He is known for popularizing British seafood dishes...
Rick Stein's Café in Padstow offers an informal, family-friendly dining experience with a menu that blends local Cornish seafood with Asian-inspired dishes, reflecting Rick Stein's culinary travels. It provides a calmer and more intimate atmosphere compared to some of his other establishments and features a dog-friendly courtyard.
Customers generally praise the delicious food, particularly the seafood dishes like pan-fried hake, prawns, and mussels. The service is often described as friendly and attentive, contributing to a pleasant dining experience with a cozy vibe. Some reviewers found the Asian-inspired flavors to be occasionally lacklustre or unbalanced, and the 12.5% service charge for tap water was noted as unusual by some.
Additional Details
The café is dog-friendly in its courtyard area. It is recognized by the Michelin Guide with a Bib Gourmand for good quality and good value cooking.
No specific peak times or ideal days are mentioned, but given its popularity and location in Padstow, booking in advance, especially for lunch or dinner, is advisable.
Awards & Recognition
Bib Gourmand • 2026
5
Padstow is not short of good places to eat, Rick Steins cafe is probably our favourite right now. A lovely relaxed atmosphere and superb food. My wife started with salt and pepper prawns, I had Vietnamese poached chicken salad, both excellent. One of our guests had the mussels. For mains my wife had the salmon parcel and was disappointed. The crust on it overwhelmed the salmon, I tried it and it wasn’t nice. I had the Pondicherry curry which was excellent. I drank Asahi beer, my wife preferred the Rick Stein label white burgundy which never disappoints. Sticky toffee pud was the best I’ve ever had.
Our server, Mandy was a delight, and very informative .
This was booked for a surprise birthday treat, we had prawns, mussels and sardines for starters to share, they were delicious, prawns were probably my favourite, but the sauce with the mussels was really tasty. I had pan fried hake with spring onions mash for my main, and I would go back to the place just for this, every mouthful was wonderful. There's not a lot to choose from on the kids menu, scampi, breaded chicken and one other. But we all came away feeling more than satisfied. There is an outdoor seating area, which I may have chosen had I have known about it before being seated. Overall a good experience.
We're a family of 5 (2 teenage girls + 1 21 yr old). From London. Foodies. And I'm a Rick Stein - the TV chef - fan. We were super excited to try out the Rick Stein Cafe in Padstow. We had a 2 hr booking at 15.15. Traffic delayed us by 10 minutes but were told we had to keep to our window. The menu looked great. We think the fish cookery was very good (prawns, crab linguine, sea bream). But the pan asian flavours were lack lustre. I was disappointed that the balance of flavours was not there! Either too much salt (or fish sauce) or a lack of balance e.g. the pondicherry fish, Hanoi chicken broth. Desserts were okay though. Service also although friendly was mediocre. I still love Rick Stein as a TV chef and certainly learn a lot from him but I'm afraid my 1st experience of one of his restaurants was bleh.
We ate in the café. My partner has an allergy to molluscs and the staff worked exceptionally hard to accommodate her needs. Menu items were explained and checked with the kitchen staff, who then cleaned down before cooking each dish to avoid any contamination. Otherwise, the service was extremely good. Each dish has clearly been devised by extremely capable people - the spicing was perfect and some of the dishes were exceptional - the salt and pepper prawns, the Pondicherry curry and, amazingly the sticky toffee pudding. I never thought I'd be surprised by a sticky toffee pudding, but it was great. The price for all this was reasonable, to say the least. Try this place - it's no ordinary café!
Lovely food & service. Expensive service charge at 12.5% and charged for tap water which is unusual. I love tipping & would have preffered to tip.
Still lovely just worth mentioning for those who dont love service charges.
Nice cosy vibes & blankets too.
