St Ives packs three beach restaurants, four harbour pubs and three Michelin-listed kitchens into a town you can cross on foot in 15 minutes. Most of the good tables sit along the Wharf or in the lanes between Fore Street and Porthmeor Beach.
We checked every place below against its own website and current menus in October 2026. Prices are from those menus. Several add a 10% or 12.5% service charge, so read the bottom of the bill.
Parking is a battle from June to September. Eat early, walk in from the park-and-ride, or stay in town and leave the car.
Quick picks
| If you want | Go to | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A table on the sand | Porthminster Beach Cafe | Michelin-listed seafood with a heated glass terrace, open all year |
| Dinner worth booking | Ardor or St Eia | Both in the Michelin Guide, both in the old town |
| To bring the dog | Hub, Silco or the Rum & Crab Shack | Dogs welcome inside, no conditions |
| No booking, just turn up | Hub, Balcony or Harbour Fish & Chips | All three run on walk-ins |
| Breakfast | The Yellow Canary | Open from 07:00 every day on Fore Street |
| Something to eat on the harbour wall | St Ives Bakery or Harvey Brothers | Pasties, and the queue moves fast |
Beach cafes
Porthminster Beach Cafe
Porthminster Beach Cafe is the restaurant most visitors have heard of, and it is listed in the Michelin Guide. It sits on Porthminster Beach and cooks Cornish seafood with Asian and Mediterranean flavours: catch of the day is £34 and the monkfish curry £39 on the September 2026 menu. The glass-enclosed terrace is heated, which is why it now opens all year.
Book through the website. Card details are taken and there is a £15 per head charge for no-shows, and a 12.5% service charge is added to the bill. Dogs are welcome if you mention them when you book.
Porthgwidden Beach Cafe
The smallest of the three, on Porthgwidden Beach below the Island headland. The menu is simpler than its sister restaurant at Porthminster: fish and chips for £18, moules frites, dressed crab, catch of the day for £29. Dinner runs 17:30-20:30 Monday to Saturday, and Sunday lunch goes on until 19:30.
Dogs are welcome, and the terrace is enclosed and heated for winter. It books through OpenTable with the same £15 no-show charge.
Porthmeor Beach Cafe
Right on Porthmeor Beach, just below Tate St Ives. It is best known for its build-your-own breakfast (09:00-11:00), then switches to tapas-style seafood plates: mussels £19.50, grilled sea bream £23.95. Dogs can sit on the terrace but not in the pods or inside.
Check the season before you plan dinner here. In October 2026 dinner runs only Wednesday to Saturday, there is no dinner from 1 November to 26 December, and the cafe closes from 4 January to 5 February.
Dinner worth booking
Ardor
Ardor at 45 Fore Street is listed in the 2026 Michelin Guide. Chef patron Dorian Janmaat cooks Iberian and Mediterranean food over charcoal on a Josper grill: pintxos, paella, dry-aged steak and Cornish seafood. Crispy salt cod is £12 and the scallop, prawn and octopus pil pil £18.
All bookings are online, with a £25 per head charge for no-shows or cancellations inside 24 hours. Dogs are allowed at lunch (12:00-14:30) but not at dinner. Saturday lunch is a bottomless brunch.
St Eia
A natural wine bar and bottle shop in the Digey, the lane running down from Fore Street towards Porthmeor. The cooking is French bistro, built on produce from local organic growers: roast hake with St Austell Bay mussels was £24 on the spring menu, Newlyn crab salad £14. It is listed in the Michelin Guide.
Lunch is Tuesday to Sunday, dinner Wednesday to Saturday, and it is closed on Mondays. Book inside tables through OpenTable; the outdoor terrace is walk-in only.
Mazza
New for 2026, at 4 Wharf Road on the harbour front. Mazza is a coal-fired steak and seafood kitchen from Hub Box founder Richard Boon and Great British Menu chef Jeff Robinson. It opens for lunch and dinner every day, with a Sunday roast from 12:00 to 18:00, and books online.
The Mermaid
A family-run seafood restaurant at 21 Fish Street in Down-a-Long, the old fishing quarter behind the harbour. The building has been a sail loft and a lemonade factory. It serves dinner only, from 18:00 Monday to Saturday, with lobster as the summer special. Book ahead in season.
Porthminster Kitchen
The second restaurant from the Porthminster Beach Cafe team, on Wharf Road above the harbour. Plates are smaller and cheaper than at the beach: fish and chips £19 and catch of the day £26 on the April 2026 menu. Food runs 12:00-20:30 daily, with roasts on Sunday. Dogs are welcome on the balcony and in part of the restaurant, but tell them when you book because those tables are limited.
On the harbour
Hub
Hub has been making burgers on the Wharf since 2003 and is where the Hub Box chain began. A cheeseburger is £17.95 and the full Cornish breakfast £16.50. It opens at 08:30 every day. It takes no reservations in peak holiday periods, so expect to queue in August. Dogs welcome.
The Rum & Crab Shack
On Wharf Road, opened by four friends in 2012, with crab and lobster dishes and Cajun and Caribbean mains. A crab sandwich is £19.95 and the Louisiana seafood boil £59 for two. There are more than 100 rums behind the bar. Dogs are welcome. Last winter it opened Thursday to Sunday only, so check before an off-season visit.
Silco Bar & Kitchen
Run by the St Ives Liquor Co, the family business behind St Ives Gin, on the Wharf. Small plates, burgers and salads from 12:00 to 21:00, and a St Ives gin and tonic for £8.50. Happy hour is 15:00-17:00. Dogs are welcome and a few tables are always kept for walk-ins. It closes for a few weeks from early January.
Cintra Seafood Bar
Seafood small plates on the Wharf: tempura cod £10.95, crab nachos £13.95, Porthilly oysters £4 each. It is named after the Cintra, wrecked in St Ives Bay in the Great Gale of 1893, whose anchor stands on Smeaton’s Pier. Only the inside tables can be booked; every outdoor table is walk-in. No dogs inside.
Balcony Bar & Kitchen
A first-floor bar on the Wharf, up a flight of stairs, looking straight over the harbour beach. Breakfast from 08:00, then burgers from £11 and fish and chips at £16.95. It is walk-in only and adds a 10% service charge. Well-behaved dogs are allowed.
Pubs
The Sloop Inn
The Sloop sits on the Wharf and says it dates from around 1312, though the building you drink in today is 17th or 18th century. The bar is walk-in, with St Ives Brewery ales; the Captain’s Table restaurant takes bookings. Dogs are welcome inside and out.
The Lifeboat Inn
A St Austell Brewery pub next to the town’s lifeboat house on Wharf Road, with a log fire for cold days. Breakfast from 08:30, then pub food until 21:00 (21:30 on Friday and Saturday). Dog-friendly, but it has no car park.
The Castle Inn
A real ale pub at 16 Fore Street, trading since around 1840. It pours Cornish ales and close to 30 Cornish gins, and says it has appeared in the Good Beer Guide more often than any other St Ives pub. Dogs get biscuits and water.
Pedn Olva
A St Austell Brewery hotel on the clifftop above Porthminster Beach, with a terrace over the bay. Pub classics on the terrace, a fuller menu in the restaurant: whole catch of the day £27.50 in the evening, full English £15.50 at breakfast. Dogs are allowed everywhere except the main restaurant.
Burgers
Blas Burgerworks
At The Warren, near Porthminster, Blas has been cooking burgers from Cornish beef for almost 20 years. The house Blas burger with hand-cut chips is £19.75, and the veggie burgers are made in the kitchen. It opens at 17:00 for dinner and takeaway. Phone to book (01736 797272), because it fills up.
Breakfast and coffee
The Yellow Canary
Family-run on Fore Street since 1972 and open 07:00-20:00 every day, which makes it the easiest early breakfast in town. Origin coffee from Helston, sandwiches on fresh bread, pastries, cream teas and pasties.
Crowst
A brunch and coffee cafe at 6 The Digey, also serving matcha and coffee cocktails. Food is served 09:00-15:00. Its opening days have changed through the year, so check its Instagram before you walk over.
Pasties, chips and ice cream
St Ives Bakery, 52 Fore Street, bakes pasties in five fillings, from flaky steak to steak and Stilton, and will bake to order with an hour’s notice. Harvey Brothers, the butcher at 1 Tregenna Place, uses meat from its own farm at Pendeen, and its steak pasties have a local following.
For fish and chips, Harbour Fish & Chips on Wharf Road buys its fish from St Ives fishmonger Matthew Stevens and cuts its chips on site. It takes no bookings and no dogs, and opens all year. The Balancing Eel on Back Lane, by the Sloop car park, does eat-in and takeaway from 12:00 to 20:30, and you can book a table online.
Moomaid of Zennor makes its ice cream on the family farm at Zennor and sells it from a parlour on Street-an-Pol, at the corner of St Andrews Street. It is open all year, with longer hours in summer.
One evening in St Ives
Start at Silco on the Wharf for the 15:00-17:00 happy hour, with the harbour in front of you. Walk up through the old town to Fore Street for dinner at Ardor, booked online, or turn into the Digey for St Eia on a Wednesday to Saturday night. Finish a few doors along Fore Street at the Castle Inn for a Cornish ale.
Where to stay
Staying in town means you can walk to dinner and skip the summer parking fight. Arghanti is a dog-friendly two-bedroom cottage sleeping four in the town centre. St Ives View has three bedrooms and sleeps six near Porthminster.
For more choice, browse holiday cottages in St Ives, apartments in St Ives or dog-friendly apartments. Carbis Bay is one stop down the branch line if town is full.
See also: Things to do in St Ives | Beaches in St Ives | A weekend in Cornwall | Barbara Hepworth Museum | Where to eat in Penzance
