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Boris Johnson invites Biden, Macron and Merkel to barbecue on beach in Cornwall

Local chefs show off Cornish produce at G7 summit

Andrew Woodcock
Political Editor
Friday 11 June 2021 07:03 BST
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Biden touches down in Cornwall for G7 summit

World leaders including Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel have been invited to a barbecue on the beach with Boris Johnson during their stay in Cornwall for the G7 summit.

The leaders - more used to fine dining and banquets on their trips abroad - will be served local delicacies on the sands of Carbis Bay on Saturday by chef Simon Stallard of the Hidden Hut, whose regular gig is in a takeaway shack on the beach at nearby Portscatho.

On the menu are scallops, Curgurrell crab claws and Portscatho mackerel, followed by seared and smokey Moorland sirloin beef, Newlyn lobster and scorched leeks served with sides of layered Cornish potato chips, St Just purple sprouting broccoli and salt-baked beetroot.

After a dessert of beach hut sundae, the leaders will be offered baked Brie, hot buttered rum and toasted marshmallows around firepits on the beach.

Local beers and Cornish sparkling wine and a “hedgerow fizz” cocktail will be served alongside German and Australian wines as guests enjoy traditional sea shanties by local band Du Hag Owr and a fly-past by the Red Arrows.

Like any barbie hosts, Mr Johnson and wife Carrie will be anxiously scanning the skies for signs of rain, after bad weather scuppered a planned trip to St Michael’s Mount on Thursday. Latest forecasts suggest they can hope for a balmy evening in Cornwall on Saturday.

On Friday night they will enjoy more conventional culinary treats in the spectacular setting of the Eden Project, with fine dining using local ingredients cooked by chef Emily Scott from Newquay’s Watergate Bay Hotel.

The leaders will have a reception with the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge ahead of their dinner, and will discuss sustainability with Prince Charles. But the monarch will depart before the G7 delegations sit down to eat.

After a starter of spiced melon gazpacho, the world leaders will eat turbot roasted on the bone, caught off the Cornish coast by a fisherman from Newquay, with Cornish new potatoes and wild garlic pesto, with a side of greens from a Padstow kitchen garden.

The cheese board will be made up of Cornish-produced gouda, yarg and Helford blue and will be followed by a strawberry pavlova dessert.

A final west country flavour will be delivered in the form of petit fours of clotted-cream fudge and a mini clotted-cream ice cream cone with chocolate Earl Grey truffles.

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