A young man’s game

Beneath the sign outside Tim’s Place, Wadebridge is the slogan ‘Best Taste of Cornwall’. Curious to learn more, we catch up with the man himself.

Having grown up in south Wales and holidayed in Cornwall as a child, Tim moved to Cornwall seven years ago at the age of 17. After settling in, he explains, he got stuck into north Cornwall’s foodie scene, working in cafés and restaurants across Rock and Port Isaac. “I absolutely loved catering in north Cornwall, so much so that one day my parents asked ‘if you love it that much, why don’t you work for yourself instead of someone else?’”

“Being so close to the coast, we’d be mad not to make the most of the seafood that’s available here…”

And so it was that Tim, at just 18 years old, decided to take on the challenge of opening his own café in Wadebridge. “We had to build both the café and our reputation completely from scratch. The shop we bought was completely unprepared for hosting a catering business, so right from the off it proved to be a massive learning curve.”

But Tim and co have persevered and it’s clear that they’ve been doing something right. “When we first opened, I made a chocolate cake and we didn’t sell a single slice. Now, we go through up to 16 cakes a day! We’ve worked really hard at the place, and I’m very fortunate to have a team here that really know what they’re doing.” Tim’s Place proudly champions local produce and impressively, nearly everything on the menu is made from scratch. “We buy our pastries from Choughs bakery in Padstow, but apart from that we make everything ourselves. Our ever-popular fish finger sandwiches, for instance, are prepared in house, where we de-bone, fillet and bread the fish right here in the kitchen. We even make our own tartare sauce!

“Being so close to the coast, we’d be mad not to make the most of the seafood that’s available here, so it does feature a lot on our menu, but it’s not all fish and we do aim to cater for everybody.” As well as a hearty breakfast menu that features all the classics you’d expect, Tim shows us his bistro lunch menu, and it’s by talking about this that he really shows his passion for catering, as he proclaims: “If I wasn’t already married, I’d marry that food!”

It’s inspiring to see a man as young and as passionate as Tim already having made such a success of his business and to us, everything on the menu looks absolutely delicious! We’ll certainly be popping in for a bite this spring.