​Andy Mortimer finds out how heartbreak and history inspired two Bridlington friends to set up their own town centre gourmet café . . .

Gail Miller and Peter Wilkes and Seasalt & Passion in West Street, Bridlington

Like a kiddie in a sweet shop or a vegan in a health food store, I plain and simple could not decide what I wanted. Should I go for the vegetable upma – an ultra spicy South Indian dish made with semolina, vegetables, chilli, cashew nuts, sultanas and spices – or the rather more “rural” Ploughman’s lunch (with hand-made, home-made chutney, of course)?

Believe me, it was an agonising decision and, as my thoughts veered towards the inevitable delights of the upma – a bit of spice on a winter’s day by the seaside always goes down a treat – my interviewee Peter Wilkes put in his ten pennyworth.

“I learned a lot about Indian cuisine when I was working as a marine engineer with BP,” he says, as he sits down next to me. His rather large frame takes up much of my view, but I’m in no doubt he knows a lot about food.

“A lot of the ships had Indian crews and, because I was so interested in cooking, I spent a lot of time learning about their food. It was my first trip into ethnic cuisine and it allowed me to take cared-for, raw ingredients and make something special.”

Well, that was me sold – a delightful dish that would banish the cold winter chill from Bridlington seafront from my bones.

I was in the seaside resort to learn more about one of the town’s newest gourmet cafés – Seasalt & Passion. Run by Peter (52) and fellow director Gail Millar (50), it offers something a bit different for people more used to omelettes, bacon sandwiches and egg and chips from their seaside eateries.

For on the menu here, at 22 West Street, Bridlington, are home-made specials such as feta cheese salad drizzled with Peter’s home-made red pepper chilli relish, luxury “heavy on the fruit” cake with cognac, and savoury scones of the day.

The range of homemade products

“We aren’t like a typical café and we don’t do the omelettes and the like that you would normally see,” says Peter, who was born in Suffolk. “We wanted to do something different and foodstuffs others weren’t. Bridlington needs pushing along a bit and we hope we can do that.”

Seasalt & Passion opened last September after months of careful planning and preparation from two of the town’s most talented residents. But it was actually many years before that Peter first had the idea of opening a café to satisfy his own passion for making food.

“This was something I thought of doing with my wife, Sue,” recalls Peter, who once cooked for former University of Hull librarian and poet great, Philip Larkin.

“I was originally a marine engineer and then, later, a mechanical services engineer at the College of Higher Education, in Hull. But food had always been my passion.

“Before that, I remember helping out my mum in the kitchen when I was a child and also going out with my grandma and granddad who used to rent themselves out as butlers and cooks.

“I have very vague memories of visiting large Georgian houses near Windsor and my grandfather bringing back all these wonderful ingredients, fruits and boxes of pheasant.

“These memories stayed with me and, when I took a year out in 2005 with Sue, we started making serious plans to open a café.”

Unfortunately, just months after the sabbatical, Sue was diagnosed with cancer. She died in April 2008.

“I cared for her while she was poorly,” remembers Peter. “We moved to Bridlington to a house she really liked and, for a while after she died, purely through grief, I could see no way I would move on and do what we had planned so carefully.”

But this all changed on meeting Gail, who was running the Priory Gallery in Bridlington at the time.

More homemade products from Peter and Gail

An artist in her own right, Gail was keen to get involved in Peter’s ideas and, as well as supplying marketing and food ideas, decided she would also add some art to give the café a little twist.

Now joining us for a coffee after spending the previous 10 minutes or so altering the latest displays, she said: “I’d had a few family problems leading up to my meeting with Peter and it was a good time for both of us to do something new and exciting. It was a case of, if we didn’t do it now, when would we get the chance again?

“We looked all over Yorkshire for suitable premises and this was one we came back to after seeing it very early on. We both thought ‘Brid’ needed something a little different and we were determined to offer it.”

So the café opened with both Peter’s and Gail’s influences.

On the artistic side, Gail has brought in a collection of world and jazz music – “It helps the atmosphere,” she says – while on the walls hangs the work of mainly local artists, as well as that from Gail herself.

Among those displayed are Steve Dove, from North Ferriby; Dominic Murphy, who was born in Sheffield; Nigel Folds, from Bridlington; and Ann Foster, from Scarborough. “People are starting to come in for the art as well as the food,” Gail says with an obvious sense of pride. “It is  a real talking point.”

And then, of course, there is the food. Peter’s life-long passion for food has resulted in him collecting a magnificent range of recipe books – many of which he uses for inspiration here. From this, he not only makes food for the café, but also for a Seasalt & Passion product range that includes Brinjal pickle, red pepper chilli relish, strawberry vinegar, Dawson relish, apple and beetroot relish and home-made tomato ketchup.

And the ketchup, like a few other specials on the menu, has a special Victorian twist, as Peter explains.

“I like looking back in time at how recipes have changed,” he said. “I have a great interest in food history and I use recipes from a cookbook by Eliza Acton (1860) and also make Mrs Rundall’s Christmas cake from a recipe dating back to 1825.

“In addition, I occasionally use spelt flour, which dates back to pre-Roman times and is very low in gluten.

“We want people to come here and enjoy being here,” Peter continued. “A lot of our customers are our friends now and they pop in to shelter from the rain on a winter’s day like today. That’s how we want people to be – happy to be here.”

Seasalt & Passion is at 22 West Street, Bridlington. For more information, call: (01262) 671117.