Cool Place of the Day: Hive Beach Café, Dorset

Every day, a new place to discover or explore, from coolplaces.co.uk

Hive Beach: All the seafood is very locally sourced

Bang on lovely sandy Hive Beach at Burton Bradstock, this homely beach-hut-cum-seafood restaurant serves up the freshest fish and seafood for miles around along with the best sea views.

You can sit outside on the terrace all year round, or under canvas awnings if the weather’s bad, and enjoy a huge platter of seafood, including lobster, crab, langoustines and scallops, all caught in the very waters in front of you. Or choose a fish from the counter – Lyme Bay monkfish, perhaps, a whole lemon sole, some simply grilled herrings with garlic butter, or just plain old-fashioned fish and chips, coated in a light batter and served with the mintiest, mushiest peas you could desire. Be warned, though, it’s busy, and you may have to wait for a table.

Hive beach itself is lovely; it’s dog-friendly and there’s plenty of parking, and you can walk off your lunch with a walk on a circular National Trust trail along a stretch of the Southwest Coast Path and then inland to Burton Bradstock village, where there’s a lovely local pub, The Anchor, which also serves decent food. There are also more challenging walks east along the famous Jurassic Coast to the beach at Cogden and onwards to Abbotsbury and Chesil Bank.

Martin Dunford is Publisher of Cool Places, a new website from the creators of Rough Guides and Cool Camping, suggesting the best places to stay, eat, drink and shop in Britain (coolplaces.co.uk)