So many of you love coming to Salcombe every year and eating at the Crab Shed becomes something of a ritual. For obvious reasons, many of you missed out seeing us last year, so fingers crossed we will see you after April 12th.
Nick & I would like to thank you for the many emails we have received, wishing us well and hoping we are managing through Lockdown 3. I thought I would take this opportunity to fill you in on some of the things we have been doing whilst being closed.
One of our biggest projects was re-refurbishing our crab processing facility. We buy the crab directly from the fishermen on the quay and then it goes into our little ‘factory’ adjacent to the restaurant. We boil the crabs then lovingly hand-pick the crab meat for you to enjoy in our restaurant. You can also buy fresh crab meat directly from us for eating at home if you wish.
Lockdown was an ideal time to do this major refurb and many thanks to John Todd and his team who did an amazing job. We are thrilled with the end product and hope to be able to process more crab now than ever before.
Last summer during the first lockdown we set up an online crab shop on our website. Since then, we have increased our range from just hand-picked crab meat to include dressed crab, crab claws and whole crab. We also include some of our favourite Devon Delights like Chilli jam (which goes beautifully with crab) from our local Chilli Farm and the delicious Salcombe Dairy Chocolate Bars.
We have enjoyed trying out lots of new crabby recipes too – main courses, salads and snacks. To try some recipes out at home, take a look at our new recipe section on our website.
We have also refurbished our main restaurant kitchen during lockdown 2 and have installed a new Rational convection oven which we all love – thanks to Rich and his team from Comcat Engineering for installing it and for making more space in our small kitchen area.
Outside, alongside our waterfront dining area, we have created two ‘breakfast’ bar style seating areas, which are very popular. Thanks to local carpenter-cum-fisherman Will Guest for all the building jobs he has helped us with.
It feels like spring has arrived in Salcombe and it is looking so beautiful. We are all very excited and ready to open our doors and get the season going!
We very much look forward to seeing you all soon and in the meantime, from us all at the Crab Shed, we hope you all stay healthy and safe.
Nikki Horne
