We pride ourselves on providing the best bed and breakfast in Bude at the Camelot Hotel, with a cold buffet and a wide variety of hot breakfasts on offer.

We know how to start the day right!  Our waiters and waitresses take your order each morning and quickly rush off to the kitchen where the chefs wait with pan in hand, but what is that squiggle they’re writing?

How to take a breakfast order

That squiggle on their notepad is what we call the common language of breakfast and is the fastest way we know to make sure your breakfast is the right one!  Read below and work out what your breakfast would be:

•    B, Bacon
•    E, Fried egg
•    PE, Poached egg
•    Wt, White toast
•    Bt, Brown toast
•    ScE, Scrambled eggs
•    Boil, Boiled eggs
•    S, Sausage
•    T, Tomato
•    Fb, Fried Bread
•    Z, Beans (because beanz means Heinz)
•    M, Mushrooms
•    Haddock, Haddock with poached egg
•    FULL, The full English Breakfast!
Anything out of the ordinary just write out in full!

A waiter’s worst nightmare!

Confused yet?  Here is an example of one of our waiter’s worst nightmares after a late night out at one of the local nightclubs.  Your challenge is to see if you can work out what their order is in less than 30 seconds!

1x BTPE(2) on bt
1x FULL – over easy
1x BESTMZ – over hard
1x STM
1x Ham and tomato
1x BTScE on wt
1x HaddockPE(2)
1x Scrambled egg whites on Bt

As you can see, bed and breakfast in Bude is not necessarily straightforward. And making sure you get the correct breakfast requires neat handwriting!

Martin Watson is the head chef at The Camelot Hotel (Hawkers Restaurant), his blog series chronicles the travels and experiences from his youth leading up to now.

From Egg & Bacon to Chorizo

In the mid 70’s I took a ‘gap summer’ with the aim of travelling around Spain for a couple of months. The inspiration for my journey was twofold. Firstly, I worked in a Hotel & Country Club alongside thirty or more Spanish staff who had all told me, naturally, how wonderful Spain was. Then, by chance, I bought a copy of the Laurie Lee book ‘As I Walked Out One Midsummer’s Morning’. Having read ‘Cider with Rose’ at school, I was no stranger to his writing but this book really inspired me.

So off I went in search of all the places Laurie Lee had travelled in Spain, only to fall at the first hurdle as I could not get from Southampton to Vigo by boat. Not to be beaten, I went the long way by getting to Paris, then down to Donostia-San Sebastián in northern Spain. This was my first taste of Spain and what a sweet and pleasant taste it was. I was instantly hooked, Spain became (and still remains almost forty years later) my favourite place in Europe.

From San Sebastián I tried to get to Vigo but failed when a lorry, heading for Pamplona stopped and picked me up. Hitch hiking I had discovered was not an exact science; you tended to change your destination after hours of waiting for a lift and went where the lift took you!

Pamplona's Tapas

So, I was dropped off in Pamplona as night fell in early July and slept on a park bench outside the local prison. At first light I headed for the town centre, which to my surprise was buzzing with people. Something big was happening. With my stomach leading the way, I found a bar and had a black coffee, some Anis Dulce, a sweet liquorice liqueur which my Spanish work colleagues had introduced me to. On the counter were small dishes of all sorts of things which I learnt to be tapas, mostly salty bites given to customers to bring on a thirst. Amongst other things there was a salami type sausage, orange red in colour, with a creamy, smooth texture and sweet paprika, garlic and slightly salty taste.  This was the beginning of a great love affair with a food product, one which has endured the years and been carried on by my two daughters.

Having sampled the delights of the bar I was about to venture outside when I was stopped by an Australian who advised against it. I was in the middle of the Bull-run, so I returned to the bar, bought a beer and watched the mad event take part behind a barrier on the front door of the bar.

Chorizo in Hawkers Restaurant

Chorizo de Pamplona is, in my view, one of the finest chorizo’s or salamis you could ever experience. It used to be difficult to find but now is available in supermarkets such as Morrison’s here in Bude. Eaten on its own it is wonderful, cook with it and it opens up a completely new experience. In Hawkers restaurant, I quite often stuff a couple of slices into a chicken breast, seal it in a hot pan of olive oil then finish it in a hot oven for eight to ten minutes - delicious. Simpler still, dice up some chicken and choizo, pan fry for a couple of minutes then add some sweet peppers and onions, serve with some sautéed potato and courgettes, fantastic.

Next chef’s blog,
From Chorizo to Paella -Martin

Martin Watson is the head chef at The Camelot Hotel (Hawkers Restaurant),
his blog series chronicles the travels and experiences from his youth leading up to now.

Hawker's Restaurant

I have been fortunate enough to work at the Camelot Hotel for the past eleven years. I remember well my interview with Paddy Naylor who asked me 'Can you cook?' My reply, 'Well, I haven't done much cooking for the past twenty eight years, but I did train as a chef', was good enough to secure the position of Head Chef at Hawkers Restaurant and I was contracted to work for the first season (March – October 1999). Having survived the first six months in a kitchen full of out-dated and partially working equipment, much like the rest of the hotel, we closed in October and the Hotel was completely refurbished and expanded.

Now in our twelfth year, I have made many friends, both staff members and hotel guests. Part of my early brief was to 'mingle with the guests' and, not being one to shy away from such a request, have spent many a long night recounting stories from my past.

My Blog Series

One of our most regular guests with whom I have spent many evenings chatting, was taken with the account of my travels through Spain. In the 1970's I hitch- hiked from Gloucestershire to Spain attempting to follow the route which one of my favourite writers, Laurie Lee, had taken some forty years earlier. My trip, as far as following the route taken by Laurie Lee must be considered a failure; however, my introduction to the more rustic Spanish cuisine was a joy. With the advent of the internet, our website and blogs, it has given me the perfect opportunity to share some of my experiences with others. In the fullness of time, I am sure the readers (if there are any) will either inspire me to continue or quit.
You vote with your click!

Happy blogging!
Martin Watson

How Hawkers Restaurant was named

In 1999 when the Naylor family purchased The Camelot Hotel they decided to carry out a complete refurbishment including the creation of a new restaurant. A competition was held amongst the Bude craftsmen working on the job as to what the restaurant should be called. The winner was our plumber, Terry Bale, who is a Cornish patriot with a great knowledge of Cornish history who was born in a house at the end of the hotel car park.

His recommendation was the restaurant should be named after Parson Robert Hawker

Hawker was born in Plymouth in 1803 and as an undergraduate at Pembroke College, Oxford, aged 19 he married his godmother, Charlotte, aged 41. She had money of her own and the marriage, along with a legacy, helped to finance his studies at university. He graduated in 1827 and won the prestigious Newdigate Prize for poetry. He took Anglican orders in 1831, and became  in 1834 vicar of the church at Morwenstow, a scattered and isolated community some 5 miles from Bude. There he remained as Parson Hawker until he died in 1875.

The early years in Morwenstow

When Hawker arrived at Morwenstow there had not been a vicar in residence for over a century and he found his isolated church half in  ruins and the vicarage used for contraband storage. Using his wife’s money he repaired the church. He also built himself a remarkable vicarage, with chimneys modelled on the towers of the churches in his life: those where he had been curate, plus that of Magdalen College, Oxford. The vicarage’s kitchen chimney is a replica of Hawker’s mother’s tomb. The tiny hut he built out of driftwood, where he wrote his poetry, still stands on the cliff edge and is now renowned as the National Trust’s smallest property.

The compassionate Parson Hawker

Along the Bude west facing coast line, fierce winter gales drove many a sailing ship onto the rocks below the church. Prior to Hawker’s arrival the bodies and remains of shipwrecked sailors were buried on the beach where they were found or left to the sea. Hawker, however, insisted that  his parishioners help him carry the remains of drowned sailors up the steep cliffs and to bury them in designated ground at the entrance to the churchyard. It was a job that only the strong of nerve and stomach could handle. There still stands the figurehead of the ship ‘The Caledonia’ which foundered in September 1842. Nearby stands a granite cross marking the grave of 30 or more seafarers of the ‘Alonzo’, also wrecked in 1842.

The eccentric Parson Hawker

There are many stories of Hawker’s eccentricities and it is difficult to judge which are true and which are false. He is famed as being dressed in a claret coloured coat, blue fisherman’s jersey, long sea boots, a pink brim less hat and a poncho made from a yellow horse blanket, which he claimed was the ancient habit of St Padarn. The only black things he wore were his socks! Other eccentricities included dressing up as a mermaid and excommunicating one of his cats for mousing on Sundays. He talked to the birds, invited his nine cats into church and kept a huge pig as a pet.

Hawkers Restaurant

For more than forty years Parson Hawker admonished and ministered to his flock and waged war against the establishment  and the social injustices of the day. The stories about him abound and today he is revered as a great and colourful Cornish personality. Who better to give his name to our restaurant?