The Mitchell family, on Fore Street.

Two hundred years on Fore Street.

41 Fore Street has stood for over two centuries. For the last thirty of those, it has been The Galley.

The restaurant opened on this site as a fish and seafood specialist in the early 1990s — long before the wider revival of British coastal cooking. The dining room upstairs looks out over the same stretch of the Exe estuary the building was first built to look out onto.

From Covent Garden to Padstow.

Dad — Nigel — took his first job at his uncle's pub, The Punch & Judy in Covent Garden.

From London he moved the family west to Padstow, and worked alongside Rick and Jill Stein at the Seafood Restaurant — the place that, more than any other, taught a generation of British chefs to take fish seriously. He went on to run a restaurant of his own, then took ownership of The Galley in 2013. Thirteen years later he is still here — on the floor most evenings.

Following in Dad's footsteps.

"I started working for Dad from the beginning — washing dishes on Friday and Saturday nights while I was still at school."

A three-year catering course at Exeter College followed. Patrick learned the industry on the floor: as a waiter first, then a senior, then in charge of a service, then in charge of a room. Restaurants are not learnt in a classroom — they're learnt at the pass and on the floor, shift by shift, table by table.

Today Patrick runs The Galley alongside his dad as manager and co-owner. The hiring, the floor, the rotas, the relationships with the suppliers up and down Fore Street — that's his side of the door. Nigel still takes most evenings on the room. The kitchen is now led by Head Chef Han Wang, who joined in 2024.

Same building. Same family. Same focus on the catch.