A taste of Newcastle and Tyneside
COUNTRYLOOK FOOD ATLAS · NEWCASTLE & TYNESIDE
13 local foods and traditions with the stories behind them
I start with a stottie. There is something very persuasive about a broad, floury loaf that can accommodate ham and a generous layer of pease pudding without the whole arrangement collapsing. It asks little of you beyond an appetite. Before long, though, it raises an interesting question. How did this particular combination become such a familiar taste of the North East?
Follow that question around Tyneside and the food gets steadily more interesting. A potato dish leads into family cooking. An ice-cream cone takes us through Italian migration and the fishing port at North Shields. A small book of cake recipes turns out to have carried a Newcastle grocer’s name into kitchens across Britain. Even the sweets have a complicated backstory.
Newcastle is our starting point. Tyneside takes us across to Gateshead, downriver to North and South Shields, and along the nearby coast to Whitley Bay. Some of the foods belong specifically to these places; others are traditions shared with Northumberland and the wider North East. Together, they tell us about the people who have cooked here, from families making a little meat go further to Italian ice-cream makers and the Bangladeshi families behind Ocean Road’s restaurants.
My first choices are a ham-and-pease-pudding stottie, pan haggerty if I want a proper sit-down lunch, and something from the fishing coast. Leave room for a singing hinny. The food stories come first below, followed by places to taste or buy them. Tea, coffee and the rest of the drinks cabinet have their own section at the end.
The foods and their stories
THE FOOD · 01 / 13
1. Stottie cake and the bread that holds lunch together
The word cake can be misleading. A stottie is a round, fairly flat loaf of bread, usually pale on top, with a dimple in the middle and a close, substantial crumb. Cut across it and you have a generous surface for a sandwich. This is bread you notice while eating the filling.
Its familiar name belongs to the region’s dialect: to stot is to bounce. The explanation often comes with a story about bouncing the loaf to test it. I’m happier leaving the bread on the table. What matters to its character is the association with baking on the oven floor and the resulting low shape and firm texture.
Beamish’s account connects stotties with leftover dough and the communal bread ovens once used in North East communities. That gives the loaf a practical history. Dough was used up, and a filling bread came out of an oven shared with neighbours. The reconstructed communal oven behind the museum’s pit cottages helps make sense of that world, even though Beamish itself is in County Durham, beyond this guide’s main area.
For a first taste, I want the familiar pairing of ham and pease pudding. The bread has enough structure for the soft peas, while the ham supplies the salt and chew. A great mound of competing fillings makes the combination harder to appreciate. There is quite enough going on already.
Try versions from different bakers and notice the depth of the loaf, how tightly the crumb is packed and how easily it bites through. There is room for individual interpretation. My preference is for a bread with enough substance to hold lunch together, without making chewing it the afternoon’s main occupation.
THE FOOD · 02 / 13
2. Pease pudding and an old British dish that stayed local
Pease pudding deserves a moment before it disappears inside the sandwich. Made by cooking split peas until they soften into a thick, smooth mixture, it is generally a muted yellow rather than the green of mushy peas. There is no sweetness implied by the word pudding. The attraction is its gentle, earthy flavour and the way it takes on seasoning.
This is an older and more widely travelled dish than its modern North East identity might suggest. Hannah Glasse included pease pudding in her 1747 cookery book. By 1861, Mrs Beeton was describing peas boiled in a cloth, then worked with butter and eggs and cooked again. She recommended it with boiled pork or beef. Put that richer, twice-cooked pudding beside the spread in a modern stottie and you can see how much a familiar dish can change.
The connection with meat is more than a serving suggestion. Peas can be cooked with a ham or bacon joint, taking flavour from the cooking liquid. Other versions use water or vegetable stock. If you avoid meat, ask how a particular batch was made; the name alone will not tell you.
I like the way pease pudding makes a little ham feel like a more complete lunch. Its softness fills the gaps between bread and meat, and a little mustard adds a welcome sharpness. Try a spoonful on its own before adding anything else. You can then understand what it contributes to the sandwich.
Its particular importance here is that it remains an everyday food, sold by bakers and pork butchers. A dish can become a strong expression of a place through the people who keep eating it, even when its earliest history belongs to a much wider area.
THE FOOD · 03 / 13
3. The saveloy dip and the North East pork shop
Order a saveloy dip and lunch becomes rather more elaborate. A smoked sausage goes into a soft bun with pease pudding, stuffing and, if you want it, English mustard. The bread is dipped into savoury cooking liquid. Quite how wet you want it is a personal matter. I favour enough to soak into the bread without turning the last few bites into an engineering problem.
The different textures explain the appeal. The sausage is firm and smoky, the peas are soft, and the stuffing brings its own seasoning. Mustard is especially useful here: with so much bread and filling, a little heat stops the whole thing feeling too uniform.
Dicksons, the South Shields business founded in 1953, is closely associated with the sandwich. It helped make the saveloy dip a familiar purchase across the region, but it did not invent it. The Sunderland Echo has traced a reference in its own letters page to October 1947, several years before the first Dicksons shop opened. That is evidence of the dish being known then, rather than proof of who first assembled it.
The pork shop is an important part of the picture. Sausage, stuffing and peas become a hot lunch assembled at the counter, with the customer deciding how much mustard and dipping it needs. It is a very particular set of preferences to fit inside one bun.
Ask for the full combination if this is your first encounter, then adjust it next time. A saveloy dip has a different character from a ham stottie: warmer, wetter and more heavily seasoned. Both belong in the picture, and both make pease pudding seem an entirely sensible thing to keep close at hand.
THE FOOD · 04 / 13
4. Pan haggerty and the pleasure of potato and cheese
Potatoes, onions and cheese are a promising place to begin. In pan haggerty they are layered in a shallow pan, cooked until the potatoes soften, then browned on top. The onions lose their sharpness, the cheese settles between the slices and the surface takes on the colour that makes you reach for a spoon.
This is a Northumbrian dish with a firm place in the wider North East repertoire. A recipe printed in the Nottingham Evening Post in March 1936 calls it Northumbrian pan haggerty and gives a recognisable combination of thinly sliced potatoes, onions and grated cheese. Its appearance in a Midlands newspaper shows that the dish was already travelling beyond the region under its own name.
You will also encounter panackelty, panaculty and other spellings in discussions of regional food. Those names often describe meatier dishes, including versions made with leftovers or corned beef. Family recipes overlap. It is worth reading the description rather than assuming that similar names mean exactly the same supper.
My preference is for the simpler potato, onion and cheese version, particularly with greens or something sharp alongside. Richness is welcome, but the potatoes should still have an identity of their own. If everything has dissolved into a heavy cheese sauce, I lose some of the pleasure of the layers.
The dish also adapts well to a restaurant lunch. An egg turns it into a more substantial plate, while vegetables give some relief from the cheese and potato. It is easy to see why this kind of home cooking still earns space on a menu. Check the cooking fat if you need a vegetarian version; older recipes sometimes use dripping or bacon fat.
THE FOOD · 05 / 13
5. Gateshead floddies and a breakfast worth recognising
Floddies are small fried potato cakes associated with Gateshead. Grated potato and onion form the base, flour helps bind them, and many versions include chopped bacon and egg. The edges are the part I look forward to: all those little shreds of potato give the pan something to catch and brown.
They are quite different from pan haggerty. Here the potato is grated, mixed and fried in individual portions, so the appeal is in the contrast between the outside and the softer middle. Bacon adds small pockets of salt and fat rather than forming a separate item on the plate.
Recipes survive under names including bacon floddies and Tyneside floddies. Their exact beginnings are uncertain, but the ingredients explain their usefulness in a home kitchen: ordinary potatoes, a little flour and small pieces of bacon made into something substantial. Grating also means that the potato cooks without a long wait for a whole one to soften.
What interests me is how easily the dish can return to an ordinary breakfast menu. At Ardallan Kitchen in Gateshead, the cook Thomas Frizell-Shackley has described finding a recipe in Karen Burns-Booth’s book Lavender & Lovage and bringing floddies into the kitchen’s breakfasts. His versions include bacon floddies and a vegetarian alternative with sun-dried tomato and herbs. That is a specific example of an older regional recipe being picked up and used again.
Given the choice, I make room for a floddy before adding another piece of toast. An egg gives the browned potato something soft to meet, and the small size means plenty of crisp edge. The vegetarian version has its own appeal; herbs and tomato bring a different kind of seasoning to the same practical little cake.
THE FOOD · 06 / 13
6. Singing hinnies and the sound of the griddle
A singing hinny has one of the loveliest names in British baking. Hinny is a regional term of affection; the singing is the sizzle of fat on the hot griddle. The cakes are usually studded with dried fruit and browned on both sides, somewhere in the family of griddle scones rather than tall oven-baked ones.
The tradition reaches across Northumberland and the wider North East. In the University of Leeds’ dialect recordings, women in Humshaugh remembered their mother making girdle cakes over an open fire. Girdle is another name for the griddle. That small domestic recollection brings the baking close: cakes made on the cooking surface already available in the house, with someone standing nearby to judge when to turn them.
Recipes vary. The National Trust’s Cragside version uses both butter and lard, with currants. The fat makes a tender cake, while the fruit gives little pockets of sweetness through the dough. If you need a vegetarian version, ask about the fat; the familiar butter-and-jam serving tells you only part of what went into it.
Warmth matters to the experience I want. A browned outside, fruit through the middle and butter beginning to melt into the cut surface are quite enough. Jam is welcome; a very large helping can overwhelm the cake. In a restaurant, cream makes the same idea feel more like pudding.
I have a soft spot for foods whose names tell you how they are made. Here you can almost hear the instruction. Keep the heat gentle enough for the centre to cook while the outside browns, and listen. A hinny should give you time to make the tea.
THE FOOD · 07 / 13
7. North Shields prawns and the story inside scampi
At North Shields Fish Quay, a prawn may be a langoustine. The small, pale orange crustacean with slender claws is Nephrops norvegicus, also known as a Norway lobster or Dublin Bay prawn. Its tail meat is the basis of scampi. Several menu names suddenly lead back to the same animal.
North Shields has a fishing history reaching back to the thirteenth century, when the Prior of Tynemouth developed a settlement to supply fish to the priory. The catch and the fleet changed enormously over the following centuries. Research on the modern fishing community describes the decline of deep-sea trawling and the growing importance of prawns. The boats and businesses around the quay are part of that continuing story.
This is the part I find particularly satisfying. A breadcrumbed portion on a pub menu can feel anonymous. See the whole langoustine, with its long claws and segmented tail, and there is suddenly an animal, a catch and a fishing trade behind a familiar order.
Whole langoustines give you the pleasure, and the work, of dealing with the shells. Prepared tails are easier to eat. Batter and breadcrumbs create different results again. Ask whether a menu means whole shellfish, freshly prepared tails or a ready-prepared scampi product; each has its place, but they are not interchangeable.
At the fishmonger, ask what was landed locally and what is good that day. Shops here also sell seafood sourced elsewhere, so the conversation matters. It can change what you take home, and it gives you a much clearer idea of how the working quay supplies the table.
THE FOOD · 08 / 13
8. Fish and chips and a century on Ocean Road
Fish and chips belongs to Britain as a whole, but particular shops become part of a town’s daily life. In South Shields, Colmans gives us a well-documented example. The family’s first venture was a small beach shack in 1905. The Ocean Road business opened in 1926, and its centenary in 2026 has been marked by South Shields Museum & Art Gallery.
There is more variety in that history than the phrase old fish-and-chip shop suggests. The family expanded into other premises, including a large restaurant with a small palm court orchestra. Food at the coast could mean a simple takeaway or a more elaborate afternoon out. I like having both pictures in mind when reading the old photographs.
On the plate, the decisions are more immediate. Cod is the familiar choice; haddock has a flavour of its own and is worth considering if you want something a little more pronounced. The treatment matters as much as the species. A thin, crisp coating and properly cooked fish are the point of the exercise; an impressive mountain of batter is less persuasive on its own.
Mushy peas belong naturally beside it, but they are different from the pease pudding in the stottie. They have their own colour, texture and place in the meal. Bread is another local detail to notice: Colmans lists stottie cake with butter, so even this familiar British lunch can carry a distinctly regional accompaniment.
My practical preference is to eat fish and chips promptly. Takeaway makes sense when the weather cooperates and you have somewhere nearby to settle. A table is the better choice when the alternative is letting everything steam in its wrapping while looking for a sheltered seat.
THE FOOD · 09 / 13
9. Italian ice cream on the Tyneside coast
Vanilla is usually where I begin with an ice-cream maker. It leaves less room to hide behind a collection of sauces and biscuit pieces, and it makes an interesting starting point before moving on to another flavour. Along this coast, it also leads into the history of Italian family businesses.
Minchella & Co has made ice cream on Ocean Road in South Shields since 1942. Its own account describes a business that began with traditional vanilla and expanded its range over time. The local museum has collected one of the firm’s old signs, recognising how familiar these businesses became in the town’s streets as well as its eating habits.
The Di Meo family tells a different journey. Its history describes Isidoro Di Meo making and selling ice cream in the Ashington area in the 1920s, using ice obtained from the fishing port. Later generations returned to the North East after a period in Glasgow. The Whitley Bay parlour opened in 2001, and the company moved its production to North Shields in 2024, close to the fish quay associated with the earlier family story.
That connection between fish and ice cream is the detail that stays with me. They seem like separate pleasures until you think about the ice needed to keep food cold. A working port helped support a trade that became part of the seaside outing.
These are individual family histories, with their own dates and recipes. It is worth paying attention to the name over the door. Choose a simple scoop first if you want to understand the ice cream, then follow your curiosity. The more extravagant sundae can wait until you have established what you are building it on.
THE FOOD · 10 / 13
10. Ocean Road curry and the families behind the restaurants
An account of Tyneside food needs room for Ocean Road. The South Shields street has a long-established concentration of Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants, and the families behind them belong in the area’s food history alongside its bakers and fishmongers.
Look beyond the broad label Indian restaurant and individual family histories emerge. In ITV’s reporting on Ocean Road, one restaurateur described his father opening a restaurant in the 1970s after coming from Bangladesh. Another family, the Choudhury brothers, opened Zeera in 2007, dividing the work between the kitchen and the running of the restaurant. The street’s food history stretches across generations as well as borders.
The restaurants do not share a single signature dish that can stand for the whole street. Menus draw on different regional traditions and on the familiar dishes developed within British curry-house cooking. I want to know which dishes show a particular kitchen’s interests, and which have become favourites with its regular customers.
I look for variety in the meal rather than ordering several dishes with similar sauces. A tandoor-cooked dish, something with more gravy and a vegetable accompaniment make it easier to notice differences in texture and seasoning. Heat is only one part of that decision. Fragrance, sourness and how the main ingredient is cooked matter just as much.
Ocean Road also changes how I think about the word local. A restaurant can draw on family roots thousands of miles away and still become central to the place where those families live and work. The continuity is in the years of cooking, employment and meals eaten there. It is a substantial part of the town’s story.
THE FOOD · 11 / 13
11. Black bullets and a peppermint sweet with a local following
A black bullet is a dark, hard peppermint sweet. The familiar Jesmona tins, with their bold stripes, make a small and rather satisfying souvenir. Inside, the pleasure is straightforward: a sweet that lasts, with a clear mint flavour and no elaborate filling to get through first.
These sweets belong to a wider North East confectionery trade. Historical accounts identify manufacturers including Maynard’s in Newcastle and Welch’s in North Shields, with different firms selling their own black bullets. Jesmona became one of the best-known names, associated with Johnson Dodds & Co near Newcastle’s Quayside. The local story extends beyond a single tin.
In 2026, the story acquired a fresh South Shields connection when Mr Swainstons secured the UK licence to distribute, market and develop Jesmona for three years. The sweet shop sells both bags and the familiar striped tins. It is a new local chapter in the selling of the sweets; manufacture and brand ownership have their own histories.
I’m drawn to an edible souvenir that fits in a pocket and asks for no special occasion. A few sweets will tell you whether the peppermint appeals. The tin has a purpose once it is empty, too, although buying more sweets is an entirely reasonable use for it.
The broader story is about the survival of an everyday confection. Familiarity can be a considerable strength. A sweet does not need a new flavour every season to retain its place in someone’s pocket.
THE FOOD · 12 / 13
12. Be-Ro and Newcastle in the home baking cupboard
The small Be-Ro recipe book deserves a place here because it carried a Newcastle business into kitchens far beyond the city. Its roots lie with Thomas Bell’s grocery and flour business. The first recipe book appeared in 1923, helping readers turn the company’s flour into scones, cakes, pastries and puddings.
The selling method was practical. In the early 1920s, Be-Ro used baking exhibitions to introduce people to what self-raising flour could do. Once customers wanted to make the results at home, the recipes became part of the relationship. The book gave them a reason to buy the flour, and the flour gave them a reason to keep using the book.
What I like about this contribution to food history is its domestic scale. Newcastle helped sell a method and a reference book, then the recipes travelled through repeated use. Someone wanted scones for tea; the little book came out again. Commercial ambition and a very ordinary household need fitted neatly together.
Older editions are also interesting objects. Look at the size of the booklet, the recipes given space and the assumptions about the reader’s equipment and knowledge. A recipe book can tell you a good deal about the kitchen it expected to sit in. Well-used copies often carry their own layer of family decisions in the margins.
For the food itself, think of scones, tea loaves and straightforward cakes rather than a single dish unique to Newcastle. The connection is the maker and the baking tradition it helped spread. The book is still available through Be-Ro’s official website, which also shares a selection of recipes. This is a part of the guide you can take home and use.
THE FOOD · 13 / 13
13. Greggs and the local bakery that became a national habit
It would be an odd account of Newcastle’s food to overlook Greggs. The scale of the business can obscure the local story: a delivery round, then a shop on Gosforth High Street, gradually expanding into a name familiar across Britain.
The Greggs Foundation dates the bakery round to 1939 and the first shop to 1951. The company’s own history recalls John Gregg delivering eggs and yeast before the shop developed its bread and baking business. Those beginnings place it among the ordinary food purchases that made up a household’s week.
The regional detail I find most interesting is the stottie. Greggs still identifies it as a North East product, sold whole or used for sandwiches in some of its shops. The company also says attempts to sell stotties elsewhere did not attract enough demand. A national chain can be highly recognisable while one of its breads remains stubbornly regional.
That regional variation is what I look for in a branch here. The stottie invites a comparison with an independent baker’s version: the weight of the bread, the depth of the loaf and the texture of its crumb. A shop you recognise from home can still have something unfamiliar behind the counter.
Gosforth adds the company’s beginnings to that encounter. You need not make a pilgrimage for a sandwich, but the original High Street location helps put the scale of the present business in perspective. The history starts with a delivery round and a local shop, and there is still a regional loaf in the story.
THE COUNTRYLOOK FIELD GUIDE
Where to taste and buy the food
Choose a few stops around the foods that interest you most. Shieldfield and Gosforth belong to the Newcastle part of the guide; Felling is across the river in Gateshead; North Shields and Whitley Bay make a separate coastal outing. South Shields has enough in its own centre and on Ocean Road to occupy a hungry afternoon and evening.
The shops and menus below were checked in November 2026. Use the linked websites for current hours and bookings, and ask about a particular dish before making a special journey. Fish and shellfish depend on the catch, while restaurant menus change with the season.
PLACE TO EXPERIENCE · 01 / 11
1. Big River Bakery for stotties and pease pudding
Where: 42 Wretham Place, Shieldfield, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 1XU.
Big River is my starting point for the bread itself. The bakery’s range includes stotties and ham-and-pease-pudding boxes, and its Shieldfield premises combine a shop, café and training space. You can buy lunch or book time to learn what goes into making it.
Community food projects and baking activities sit alongside the shop’s commercial work. That gives the stottie a wider role here, as something people can make, share and build skills around. The courses are the option for readers who want flour on their hands as well as a loaf to take home.
Choose a stottie with the familiar ham and pease pudding combination, or buy the components to put together later. Stottie-making courses require a separate booking. The shop keeps daytime hours and lists Monday-to-Saturday opening, so make this a morning or lunchtime plan.
PLACE TO EXPERIENCE · 02 / 11
2. Dicksons for a saveloy dip
Where: Unit 6, Denmark Centre, Fowler Street, South Shields, NE33 2LR; other branches across the North East.
Dicksons is the straightforward choice when the saveloy dip is the point of the outing. The Fowler Street branch also places you conveniently for the other South Shields food stops. Order the smoked sausage with pease pudding and stuffing, then decide on mustard and the dip.
For a first encounter, I want the full combination. It makes the role of each filling clearer than a heavily edited version, and you can decide afterwards whether you prefer more mustard or less soaking. Take a few napkins with you.
This is a pork-shop lunch rather than a lengthy restaurant meal. If you are also planning fish and chips on Ocean Road, spreading the two across separate meals is sensible. Fowler Street currently lists Monday-to-Saturday hours; other branches have different schedules, including some Sunday openings.
PLACE TO EXPERIENCE · 03 / 11
3. Hinnies for pan haggerty and singing hinnies
Where: East Parade, Whitley Bay, NE26 1AP.
Hinnies brings two of the food stories together in one sit-down meal. Its autumn 2026 menu lists pan haggerty with vegetables and a poached egg, followed, if you have room, by singing hinnies with fruit jam and Chantilly cream. It is an appealing progression from potato and cheese to warm griddle baking.
I favour lunch here as the centre of a Whitley Bay outing. The egg and vegetables make a complete plate of the pan haggerty; the cream gives the hinnies the generosity of a pudding. A walk along the seafront belongs very naturally on either side of that meal.
The set lunch is listed at £22 for two courses or £28 for three. Menus are seasonal, so confirm the dishes when booking. Hinnies normally opens Tuesday to Sunday, with different service times at weekends and closures on several bank holidays.
PLACE TO EXPERIENCE · 04 / 11
4. Ardallan Kitchen for Gateshead floddies
Where: Ardallan, Holly Hill, Felling, Gateshead, NE10 9NQ.
Ardallan is a worthwhile choice if the floddies chapter has caught your attention. The café bistro occupies former Victorian stables behind the owner’s home, and its website specifically includes Gateshead floddies among the kitchen’s dishes.
The owner’s account of introducing them describes both bacon and vegetarian versions. Ask which is being served with the breakfast you choose. I’m interested in how the browned potato sits with the rest of the plate, especially an egg, and how the seasoning changes between the two versions.
Give this stop its own time. Felling is a different part of Gateshead from the riverside sights, and breakfast or brunch is the reason to go. Reserve through the online booking system or telephone; the kitchen does not take bookings by email or social media. It also runs separate ticketed supper clubs, with their own dates and menus.
PLACE TO EXPERIENCE · 05 / 11
5. Phil’s Plaice for fish from the working quay
Where: 3 Clifford’s Fort, North Shields, NE30 1JE.
Phil’s Plaice is the option for readers who have somewhere to cook. The fishmonger is close to North Shields Fish Market and describes buying from local day boats alongside wider sources. That makes a conversation about the day’s stock more useful than arriving with a fixed list.
Ask about locally landed langoustines if they are what brought you here, but let availability decide the purchase. The team offers fish preparation, so explain how you intend to cook what you buy and how many people you are feeding. Whole shellfish and prepared portions ask different amounts of work from you.
I prefer a stop like this early in the day, with a plan to get the fish back to a fridge. It is not a ready-cooked lunch stop. The published schedule is Tuesday to Saturday, with an early Saturday finish; the shop also closes on the Tuesday after a bank-holiday Monday.
PLACE TO EXPERIENCE · 06 / 11
6. Colmans on Ocean Road for fish and chips or local scampi
Where: 176–186 Ocean Road, South Shields, NE33 2JQ.
Choose the Ocean Road restaurant for the connection with the 1926 business. It offers a restaurant and takeaway, so you can decide whether this is a proper lunch or food to eat nearby. Colmans Seafood Temple is a separate seafront venue; the addresses are not interchangeable.
The menu contains a particularly useful choice. Its hand-prepared scampi is described as locally caught langoustine tails in batter. A separate Whitby scampi dish comes in breadcrumbs. The September 2026 restaurant menu prices those dishes at £23.95 and £15.95 respectively, with chips. Cod or haddock with chips is also £15.95.
For this feature, I lean towards the hand-prepared tails because they connect directly with the shellfish story. The familiar cod-and-chips order remains a sensible introduction to the shop. Add stottie bread and butter if you want the local bread alongside it, and ask about the daily fish specials before settling on the printed menu.
PLACE TO EXPERIENCE · 07 / 11
7. Di Meo’s for ice cream in Whitley Bay
Where: Marine Avenue, Whitley Bay, NE26 1LX.
Di Meo’s Whitley Bay parlour opened in 2001, bringing the family’s older ice-cream tradition to Marine Avenue. It is the seaside choice in a business whose locations now also include Tynemouth and Newcastle’s Ouseburn.
My approach to the cabinet is one familiar flavour, then one that makes me curious. Ask what has been made that day and what goes well together. There is some pleasure in making a considered choice, even when the result is simply two scoops eaten before they start running down the cone.
This works naturally with a Whitley Bay walk or lunch at Hinnies, though two puddings may call for a little spacing. Choose the coastal parlour when the sea is part of the attraction; Ouseburn fits a visit that stays in Newcastle. Check the location page for the branch you intend to use.
PLACE TO EXPERIENCE · 08 / 11
8. Minchella and Co for the South Shields ice cream tradition
Where: 9–11 Ocean Road, South Shields, NE33 2HT, with a further parlour on the seafront.
The Ocean Road shop is the clear choice if you are following the South Shields part of the story. Minchella & Co identifies 1942 as the beginning of its ice-cream production here, and vanilla was the starting point of the range.
Plain vanilla is my first order for that reason, with the more elaborate flavours and servings there for another time. I like the modest scale of this stop: it fits easily between the town centre and the sea, and it gives you a reason to notice the businesses that have made this street familiar to generations of customers.
The company also lists dairy-free and vegan ice creams; ask what is available on the day if that matters to your choice. Follow the Minchella & Co links when planning. Other Minchella-named businesses in South Shields have their own histories and premises.
PLACE TO EXPERIENCE · 09 / 11
9. Zeera for an Ocean Road curry
Where: 206–210 Ocean Road, South Shields, NE33 2JQ.
At Zeera, the Choudhury family’s part in Ocean Road’s restaurant history continues at the table. The brothers opened the business in 2007, with family members working in the kitchen as well as running the restaurant.
I’d choose an evening meal after exploring South Shields and give it a proper share of the appetite. Ask which house dishes best show the kitchen’s cooking. With more than one person, choosing contrasting preparations makes a more interesting meal than repeating the same style of sauce.
Book directly through the restaurant’s own website, linked below. Its published pattern is evening service during the week and Saturday, with an earlier opening on Sunday. That makes it easy to keep daytime free for the quay, the seafront and the smaller food stops.
PLACE TO EXPERIENCE · 10 / 11
10. Mr Swainstons for Jesmona black bullets
Where: 128–130 Fowler Street, South Shields.
Mr Swainstons gives the black-bullet story a present-day stop. The South Shields sweet shop is the business behind the 2026 Jesmona licensing agreement, and it offers the sweets by the bag and in the familiar striped tin.
This is the edible souvenir I’d choose if I wanted something easy to carry home. A small bag lets you try the peppermint before committing to a larger tin. The tin makes more sense as a gift, especially for someone with a North East connection.
There is a wide range of other confectionery in the shop, but the Jesmona link is the reason for including it here. Fowler Street also makes it easy to combine with Dicksons and the town-centre end of the South Shields route. An online shop is available if the sweets become a favourite after the visit.
PLACE TO EXPERIENCE · 11 / 11
11. Greggs for the Gosforth connection
Where: Gosforth High Street, Newcastle, or a convenient North East branch.
For readers interested in the business history, Gosforth High Street is the relevant stop: the first Greggs shop opened here in 1951, and the company still has a presence on the street. It adds context to a name you probably already know.
For the food, ask about stotties. Greggs sells them whole or in sandwiches in selected North East shops. Its own examples include a cheese savoury stottie, which offers a different filling from the ham and pease pudding elsewhere in the guide. Check with the branch if the bread is the reason for a special journey.
I’d make this a brief stop if you are already exploring Gosforth. If you mainly want the bread, a nearer branch may serve your purpose just as well. The useful comparison is with the independent bakery version, and you do not need to order a whole second lunch to make it.
Choosing a manageable food outing
For a city visit, start with Big River Bakery, then leave space for coffee in Grainger Market or a later drink in Exhibition Park. Gosforth is an additional stop for the Greggs story, rather than something to squeeze between every other meal.
On the north side of the coast, choose North Shields for the working fish quay and Whitley Bay for Hinnies and Di Meo’s. If buying fresh seafood, plan the journey home before adding a long afternoon out. For South Shields, Fowler Street and Ocean Road bring several of the food stories within one area; choose a daytime snack and an evening meal instead of attempting the entire list at once.
The Shields Ferry links North and South Shields, and Metro services connect the coast with Newcastle. Check current services when planning, especially for the return journey. A map and the day’s opening times will do more for the outing than an ambitious number of stops.
COUNTRYLOOK · THE DRINKS CABINET
The drinks cabinet
Newcastle’s drinks story moves between the kitchen cupboard, the brewery and the chemist’s counter. A bottle of brown ale is the familiar starting point. Tea delivered to the door, coffee roasted across the river and a drink first sold for patients take us in several other directions.
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1. Newcastle Brown Ale and the name on the bottle
Newcastle Brown Ale was introduced in 1927, with Colonel Jim Porter central to its development. The Tyne Brewery’s history places it within a much larger local industry of brewing, bottling and distribution. The bottle became one of the city’s most recognisable food-and-drink exports.
The present-day UK beer is a 4.7 per cent ale made with pale and darker caramel malt. Malt is the attraction, with a gentler bitterness than many modern pale ales. I’m interested in the way those fuller, slightly sweet flavours sit alongside the bread and savoury foods elsewhere in this guide.
Brewing has moved away from Tyneside, but the city’s name still travels on the bottle. That makes Newcastle Brown Ale part of the area’s industrial history as well as its drinking culture: a local product whose reputation and ownership eventually took it far beyond its original brewery.
To try or buy: Look for the bottled UK version in pubs and retailers. Availability varies, so check ahead if it is the drink you particularly want. For beer made in the city, the next stop is Wylam.
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2. Wylam Brewery and beer in the Palace of Arts
Wylam began in 2000 in the Northumberland village whose name it carries. Its Newcastle home is the Palace of Arts in Exhibition Park, a surviving building from the North East Exhibition of 1929. That makes the setting part of the interest: a building created for an exhibition of the region’s work now accommodates a working brewery.
The beer range stretches across pale ales and IPAs, stouts and bitters. My first question is about the style behind a name on the board. If you prefer malt and a more restrained bitterness, say so; if hops are the attraction, the range gives you another direction to explore. Cask and keg are both represented in the taproom.
This is the drinks stop to give a little time. A walk through the park and a drink at the brewery work naturally together, and there is food service if you want to make more of it.
To try or buy: Visit the Palace of Arts taproom, normally open Friday to Sunday, or use the brewery’s beer shop. Check the events calendar and opening information before setting out; the building also hosts live music and private occasions.
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3. Ringtons and the tea round
Ringtons began in Newcastle in 1907, when Samuel Smith sold tea from a horse and cart. The delivery round remains part of the business, with vans taking tea and other goods to customers’ doors. There is something appealingly direct about that continuity: a household staple arriving through a familiar routine.
The tea is grown overseas, with the sourcing, blending and packing bringing it into Newcastle’s working life. There is judgment involved in making a blend that tastes familiar from one purchase to the next. For a regular customer, that consistency is part of what arrives with the delivery.
My choice is a straightforward black tea with a warm hinny or a slice of tea loaf. The cake gives a little sweetness, the tea clears the way for another bite, and the whole arrangement belongs comfortably in an ordinary afternoon.
To try or buy: Buy from Ringtons’ own online shop or enquire about its delivery rounds. The company says its branded range is not sold through major supermarkets, so a casual supermarket search is not the most reliable plan. Choose the blend to suit how you actually drink tea, including whether you add milk.
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4. Pumphreys coffee and the Grainger Market connection
Pumphreys traces its roots to a Newcastle grocery founded in 1750, with the Pumphrey name entering the business in the nineteenth century. The history begins with the grocer’s trade, selling provisions, and gradually moves towards the coffee specialist we recognise today.
Coffee became increasingly important to the business. In 1983, roasting and warehousing moved to Blaydon and a Grainger Market retail outlet opened, maintaining the connection with central Newcastle. The market itself dates to 1835, so this is also a good place to notice how food retail has changed inside an older building.
For a coffee stop, I want a cup I can pay attention to and a chance to ask about beans for home. Tell the shop whether you use a cafetière, filter or espresso machine. A bag chosen for your equipment is more useful than one chosen solely because its description sounds impressive.
To try or buy: Visit Pumphreys in Grainger Market during its Monday-to-Saturday trading pattern, or buy through the company website. The Blaydon premises are a separate location. Check the market stall’s current hours before planning a late-afternoon stop.
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5. Newcastle Gin at Bealim House
At Bealim House on Gallowgate, you can see the equipment behind the drink. Newcastle Gin is distilled on the premises in a large copper still visible from the bar. That puts the making of it within sight of the glass, which appeals to my curiosity about how food and drink reach the table.
The original gin is described by the producer as having hibiscus notes, and the range includes flavoured variations. My preference on a first encounter is to begin with the original and a fairly restrained mixer. That leaves room to understand the gin before moving towards sweeter versions.
There is also a tasting experience. The published format includes a welcome cocktail and samples of four Newcastle gins with mixers, lasting approximately two hours. It is a more deliberate option than stopping for one drink, so it needs to be part of the plan rather than an incidental detour.
To try or buy: Go to Bealim House for a drink, or book the tasting directly. Bottles are also sold through Newcastle Gin’s website. Check current tasting dates and the exact format when booking.
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6. Lucozade and a surprising Newcastle beginning
Lucozade is the unexpected bottle in this cabinet. Its commercial launch dates to 1927, when it was called Glucozade, but Newcastle’s connection reaches further back into the use of glucose drinks for hospital patients.
Newcastle University’s archive holds Professor Frederick Pybus’s recollection of using a glucose drink in his clinical work and approaching a Barras Bridge chemist about making it commercially. The pharmacy traded as W Owen & Son; the university identifies William Walker Hunter as the chemist behind Glucozade. That distinction helps explain why different names appear in accounts of the drink’s beginnings.
What interests me is how far the product’s identity travelled. A drink associated with patients became a mass-market brand with a very different public image. The name may be familiar from a shop fridge, while the Newcastle connection is much less obvious.
To try or buy: Look for Lucozade Original in ordinary food retailers. It is the modern soft drink, with a formula and role that have changed since the pharmacy years. The surprise is discovering that a familiar bottle in the fridge has this Newcastle history behind it.