Riley’s Fish Shack overlooking Tynemouth’s picturesque King Edward’s Bay has picked up another internationally renowned food accolade.
The influential Condé Nast Traveller magazine has named it as one of its top 12 beach shack restaurants in the whole of the UK. It is the second year in a row that the magazine has included the beachside pitch on its list of top supper by the sea locations.
Riley’s Fish Shack – which is this year celebrating a decade in business – is included alongside similar coastal eateries taking in the length and breadth of the UK, from a tiny shed in Portscatho, Cornwall, using an outdoor stove to cook up amazing fishy feasts, to a whitewashed café on the remote Isle of Canna in the Hebrides.
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Condé Nast describes how the husband and wife team behind the fish shack, Adam and Lucy Riley, are “passionate about sourcing with seafood from Caley Fisheries (now 55 Fisheries on North Shields Fish Quay), Blythe Fisheries and North Shields Market, famous Craster kippers for breakfast, beer from local breweries and hot chocolate from Tynemouth-based chocolatier Gareth James.”
The prestigious magazine continues: “It’s set in the nook of King Edward’s Bay, where an exceptional seafood lunch should be taken in deckchairs on the sand with fire pits and views of the North Sea.”
Condé Nast Traveller goes on to recommend Whitley Bay as a good place to stay as “one of the coolest neighbourhoods in the UK for its microbreweries, nose-to-tail food scene and salty air.”
Riley’s Fish Shack first launched at the Tynemouth Food Festival in May 2012 as a mobile street food business before opening a permanent pitch in a converted shipping container on King Edward’s Bay in the autumn of 2015.
Since then the fish shack has gone on to claim a number of national plaudits and has attracted the attention of both top Michelin starred chef Michel Roux Junior, who featured it on his Channel 4 series Hidden Restaurants, and food critic Jay Rayner, who in a review in the Observer in 2016 wrote: “Call off the search. Close down the web browser and put away the guide books. I have found the eating experience of the year."
Other favourable reviews from the likes of Tom Parker Bowles followed. And in 2019 it was shortlisted in the ‘Off Map Destination’ category at the World Restaurant Awards.
Riley’s Fish Shack has since been credited with helping put Tynemouth on the national dining map.
