Low Tide Pop Up - Dining with a Difference in the Isles of Scilly

When years come to an end you tend to have a look back over your shoulder - but this year didn’t particularly offer much to write home about thanks to the pandemic - so I’ve been looking back longer than 365 days. Being a professional food writer, people often ask me about memorable meals - and one I come back to again and again was the very first Low Tide Pop-Up staged on a sand bar between the islands of Tresco and Bryher in the Scillies.

Here’s what I wrote…

The idea of eating seafood where fish normally swim might seem a bit odd to some, but on three occasions this year 100s of diners will attended a pop-up restaurant on a Scillonian sandbar that is normally home to sea-bass and shrimps.

The pop-up low-tide picnic staged halfway between the islands of Tresco and Bryher  is a truly unique event. Nothing like it is held anywhere else in the UK or even in Europe. 

It’s a picturesque and delicious concept that was invented back in 2015 when more than 300 people turned up to dine on low-tide mussels and other shellfish served in the place where they normally live. 

These unique occasions are made possible by the ultra-low seasonal tides which sweep the chilly clear waters from the gulf that separates the two popular islands of Tresco and Bryher. During normal low tides you can often wade from one else to another, but it is unusual for the entire straits to into a sandy desert. Albeit a very temporary one…

I was invited to attend the very first low-tide pop-up three years ago when brilliant sunshine was illuminating the archipelago and organisers had to cater for more than twice the number of diners they'd planned for.

A Tresco manager who was overseeing the event told us: “This is many more people than we ever dreamed would turn up. We thought we'd have 100, even 150 - but there must be over 300 here. It's great to see so many people.

“We dreamed up the idea of the pop-up restaurant because this part if the Scillies is unique when the tide goes out,” he added. “You could only do this at certain times of the year - but when these low tides happen this is where people can walk between the two islands. It's so good we'll do it again.”

Amanda Pender, who is a member of the Bryher fishing family and who runs a business called Island Fish, was busy selling fresh seafood on the sandbar, said no islanders had ever seen anything like it.

“I've lived in the islands all my life and no one has ever put on anything like this before at low tide. That is why we had no idea how many people were going to turn up.”

Amanda went on: “My father Mike goes out in his boat to catch all this shellfish and fish we are selling with my brother Mark. We all work together to make fishing work here in the islands. And now we've done this once, we'll do it again.

Two hours after she spoke those words, the place where she'd been selling lobster and crabs had been returned to their living cousins and was 12 feet under icy clear seawater.