The main restaurant at Ugly Butterfly
What is Ugly Butterfly?
This is Adam Handling's restaurant in St Ives, part of the Carbis Bay resort. If you're thinking that rings a bell - yes, this is the place that held the G7 summit back in 2021. Here the chef uses local Cornish ingredients and there's a big focus on low waste. There's also a bar here which makes use of the trims and offcuts from the main menu in cocktails and bar snacks. On a trip to St Ives, we felt we had to make a booking and take a look at this much-raved-about restaurant.
Where is it?
Carbis Bay is about 10 minutes or so drive outside of St Ives itself. If you're planning a long lunch or dinner there you can either stay in the hotel or the nearby Una resort as we did. If you are heading there straight from the train, it's a short walk from Carbis Bay station but beware of the very steep road down towards it - that'll be fine getting to the restaurant but it's not something you'll want to attempt walking up on the way back.
The restaurant has an extremely impressive setting, right above the beach looking out towards the sea. Whether you're in the bar or the main restaurant, it really is an impressive sight, whatever the weather. We visited on a cold yet relatively calm day and it's very soothing gazing across the bay during the meal.
Ugly Butterfly is on the top level of this building. The main restaurant is to the right, the bar is to the left. They've made sure that you can get a great view from everywhere in the building.
What's on the menu?
It's a tasting menu affair and frankly one of the most enjoyable tasting menus we've had for a while. That ocean backdrop helps, for sure, but throughout lunch the meal was varied, made extremely interesting use of the ingredients and course after course delighted. The local produce certainly helps, but there's an awful lot of ingenuity and originality that has gone into the menu here.
As for that menu - you have two options. There's the eight-course chef's menu at £135 or the five-course seasonal menu for £110 - with each menu having multiple extras throughout. We went for the chef's option and if you've come this far and have the time to spare, we'd recommend you go for that.
There are also some extras - oysters (six for £25), caviar (from £75) and Wiltshire truffles (£25). Of those, we opted for the oyster course - a theatrical affair which involved its own trolley arriving at the table:
Starting with the oyster course, with a drop of dessert wine in the raw ones. We also love that there's a crispy fried oyster here too.
Then we're off, full tilt into the main event. Of the multiple courses on offer, here's a taster:
We approve of any canape course that comes with a generous helping of dry ice. Bring on those theatrics.
The bread course comes with Handling's amazing chicken butter, every bit as wonderful as we remember it from encounters with it in his other restaurants.
Tuna tartare, salted gooseberry, radish
BBQ Orkney scallop, squash, chilli
That scallop also comes with this amazing scallop shell bread - best for making sure you mop up all of that sauce
Cornish turbot, mussels, courgette, basil
Herdwick lamb, artichoke, peas
Asháninka chocolate, caramel, Earl Grey - a great caramel and chocolate tart to end on.
How about wine?
The best bet with something as innovative as this is to go to the wine pairing. That starts at £95 on the seasonal menu and £120 on the chef's. Although if you really are throwing caution to the wind, there's an "opulence" pairing that starts at £1250 a table. If all that's sounding a bit too much, wines start at a very reasonable (for this kind of restaurant) £39 a bottle.
And how about the bar?
If you're nearby and fancy taking a look at Ugly Butterfly but without the whole tasting menu experience, the bar is a very good option. Cocktails there are around £15 and, as mentioned, use otherwise discarded ingredients from the kitchen. So one cocktail will use waste banana peel to make syrup while another will use waste popcorn. Also available in the bar is afternoon tea, which features crab doughnuts, a sea buckthorn custard tart and more. That's from £45.
Overall thoughts
The meal we had at Ugly Butterfly was undeniably excellent. Sometimes a high-end tasting menu can be a little wearying, but this restaurant is turning out some exceptional courses over the period of a very leisurely lunch. Key to our experience was the delivery too which used plenty of bells and whistles to keep the energy going. If you're thinking of heading for a break down in Cornwall, either during the winter months or in sunnier climes, we'd strongly suggest putting this on your itinerary.
More about Ugly Butterfly
Where is it? Carbis Bay Estate, Carbis Bay, Saint Ives TR26 2NP
How to book: Book online
Find out more: Visit their website or follow them on Instagram @uglybutterflybyah.
Hot Dinners dined as guests of Ugly Butterfly. Prices correct at time of publication.
Subscribe to be the first to get the news from Hot Dinners
