It amazes me how so many hostelries can make a shambles of a sandwich, or bungle a burger, or destroy a fry.
Thankfully this is never the case in the Shells Seaside Café, in Strandhill, just outside Sligo. Arrive to Shells on a Saturday or Sunday at any time of the year and you may have to queue for a table in this busy destination cafe: it’s worth the wait, however, for the exceptionally good food.
Jane and Myles Lamberth's story reads like a life well lived. Dubliner Jane and South African Myles meet while both working in the famous Headland Hotel in Cornwall and clicked over a mutual love of surfing. After a few years travelling and working winter seasons in ski chalets and summers spent event catering for rockstars at music festivals in the US, they based themselves in Ireland and began searching for a space to set up a business. It was surfing that drew them to Strandhill, also the welcoming outdoorsy entrepreneurial community. When a local landlord showed them a neglected greasy spoon premises on the seafront they twisted his arm to take over the building immediately, and they opened their Shells Café just ten days later.
Myles leads the kitchen, taking influences from around the world and melding them together in the food and coffee offering. Blackboard specials supplement a menu which includes breakfasts, salads, burgers, sandwiches, big plates, light bites, speciality teas and desserts. Produce is sourced locally and at the nearby Beltra Country Market. All breads, pastries and jams are made in-house each day. Shells are firing out food seven days a week so everything is fresh. It feels and tastes fresh, it has colour: it’s the kind of cooking that makes a chicken fillet burger with chunky fries feel wholesome.
Jane and Myles have built a sustainable enterprise which enriches their little corner of Sligo. Shells is just four years old but it feels rooted in the community, the staff are a mixture of locals and blow-ins, all of them practice a friendly efficiency which lets their personalities shine through. A life well lived and a café well run.
William Barry
The excellent The Surf Café Cookbook was published in 2011. A second book, Surf Café Living is out this Summer.
