10 of the UK’s best beach cafes and bars, chosen by readers

Seaside fish and chips is a great institution, but our tipsters also recommend coastal hotspots for crab sandwiches, ice-cream and wakame sesame salad

The coastal path between Eyemouth and Saint Abbs is littered with tales of smugglers and shipwrecks. Names like Cauldron Cove and Horsecastle Bay hint at dark deeds and dangerous tides. In Saint Abbs the Ebbcarrs Cafe serves hearty portions of the daily catch – langoustines, lobster, dressed crab and steaming bowls of Cullen skink – to weary walkers. Fishing is a family business. The boats in the harbour that supply the cafe are owned by a generation whose ancestors perished in the 1881 fishing disaster, when 189 men – fathers and sons – lost their lives in a freak storm. In fact, the food was so good that we stopped in again on the way back.
Christopher Watson