COAST CHARACTER

Pippa Lovell, Isle of Man

We did all the British coastal holidays when I was a child – Norfolk, Wales, Cornwall – we never went abroad. Living in Leicester, we tried as many times as possible to get away to the coast. I moved to Port Erin on the Isle of Man from Copenhagen two years ago for my partner’s new job. Now, we live

ve minutes’ walk from the beach. My popup restaurant, Versa, is on the beach too.

I plan my weekly menu around what’s available on the coastline, as 60% of my ingredients are foraged. Being by the coast is useful for seaweed foraging and I gather bladder wrack, channel wrack, sugar kelp, oarweed and sea lettuce. There are limpets and whelks to harvest too. As I walk down to the restaurant,

I forage on the way, picking wild garlic, chamomile, pennyworts, wild cresses, watercress, and mushrooms. As a child, I did a lot of blackberry-picking, and at the restaurant I worked at in Copenhagen we’d go out foraging for ingredients once a week. In Denmark, foraging is the norm.

A dish that keeps coming up on the menu is one based on sea spaghetti, also known as thong weed. The Port Erin paddle-boarders forage it for me. You never know when they’re going to go out, so it’s always a surprise when they come back with a load. We boil it off several times, then make a ricotta cheese and a pesto using foraged nuts, wild garlic, Alexanders (also known as horse parsley), wild parsley and Manx Ellerslie rapeseed oil. The most inspiring thing about living on the Isle of Man is the diverse landscape and the different ingredients available.

At home, we have a red Labrador, Laurelyn, and in my spare time there are many dog walks. My favourite is Port Erin to Bradda Head and Fleshwick Bay. It’s just so beautiful and there’s so much foraging along the way. You go up through the forest to the hill and look out across the whole of the island, and over to Ireland, England and Wales.

Versa is housed inside the winery Foraging Vintners at The Old Coal Shed, The Breakwater, Port Erin, Isle of Man, IM9 6JA. Open for dinner from Weds to Sat. To view the weekly menu and book, visit instagram.com/versaiom.