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Chef and restaurateur Adam Handling is set to reopen his Cornish restaurant Ugly Butterfly at The Headland Hotel in Newquay on 9 July 2025.
Previously based in St Ives, the restaurant will now be housed at the five-star hotel overlooking Fistral Beach. The move marks a partnership between Handling and the family-owned resort, which shares the chef’s focus on sustainability and local sourcing.
The new site will seat 50 diners indoors, with additional space for 20 on the terrace and 30 in the bar.
Ugly Butterfly will offer a flexible ‘4×4’ menu, allowing guests to select four dishes from four sections, with an emphasis on Cornish produce. Dishes include Cornish tuna with preserved truffles and elderflower; lamb with tandoori cauliflower and wasabi leaf; and St Ives lobster with wagyu beef. Cornish apple tarts will be served tableside, and desserts will include bon bons from the Adam Handling chocolate shop.
Outside, the terrace will feature a seafood-led comfort menu, including chilled and raw options, lobster rolls, and crab sandwiches. A fish and chips set menu with champagne and desserts such as trifle and knickerbocker glory will also be available.
Afternoon tea will be served in four courses – snacks, savouries, sweets and scones – and will feature local ingredients such as Rodda’s clotted cream and produce from Mitchell Fruit Garden. Options include pea tart with potato and caviar, hog’s pudding sausage rolls, and Battenberg.
Handling, chef and owner of the Adam Handling Collection, said: “As one door closes, another one opens – and this Ugly Butterfly 2.0 is a more fitting home for our most sustainable brand. We are taking this situation in an extremely positive light, building on what Ugly Butterfly has achieved and focusing on what we need to do to be even better.
“There is no doubt that we will be gunning for a Michelin star in this restaurant. And what a place to do it – the iconic Cornish hotel, The Headland. They are a force to be reckoned with, and their sustainable values and credentials are a true credit to them.”
He added: “I will be predominantly based in Cornwall for this year, to relaunch this restaurant and it will, no doubt, give my Frog restaurant a run for its money. Frog will be our only tasting menu restaurant in the group, which showcases all ingredients around the British Isles.
“This Ugly Butterfly restaurant will have food stations, so the guests can see dishes being made – there will be theatre, there will be smiles and, most importantly, there will be a real celebration of the best of the South-West.”
Veryan Palmer, executive director at the Headland, said: “We are excited to be welcoming Ugly Butterfly by Adam Handling to the Headland to offer our guests a new dining experience in our iconic hotel. The shared values of sustainability and community resonate between our operations, and we look forward to seeing the partnership develop.”
Chef and restaurateur Adam Handling is set to reopen his Cornish restaurant Ugly Butterfly at The Headland Hotel in Newquay on 9 July 2025.
Previously based in St Ives, the restaurant will now be housed at the five-star hotel overlooking Fistral Beach. The move marks a partnership between Handling and the family-owned resort, which shares the chef’s focus on sustainability and local sourcing.
The new site will seat 50 diners indoors, with additional space for 20 on the terrace and 30 in the bar.
Ugly Butterfly will offer a flexible ‘4×4’ menu, allowing guests to select four dishes from four sections, with an emphasis on Cornish produce. Dishes include Cornish tuna with preserved truffles and elderflower; lamb with tandoori cauliflower and wasabi leaf; and St Ives lobster with wagyu beef. Cornish apple tarts will be served tableside, and desserts will include bon bons from the Adam Handling chocolate shop.
Outside, the terrace will feature a seafood-led comfort menu, including chilled and raw options, lobster rolls, and crab sandwiches. A fish and chips set menu with champagne and desserts such as trifle and knickerbocker glory will also be available.
Afternoon tea will be served in four courses – snacks, savouries, sweets and scones – and will feature local ingredients such as Rodda’s clotted cream and produce from Mitchell Fruit Garden. Options include pea tart with potato and caviar, hog’s pudding sausage rolls, and Battenberg.
Handling, chef and owner of the Adam Handling Collection, said: “As one door closes, another one opens – and this Ugly Butterfly 2.0 is a more fitting home for our most sustainable brand. We are taking this situation in an extremely positive light, building on what Ugly Butterfly has achieved and focusing on what we need to do to be even better.
“There is no doubt that we will be gunning for a Michelin star in this restaurant. And what a place to do it – the iconic Cornish hotel, The Headland. They are a force to be reckoned with, and their sustainable values and credentials are a true credit to them.”
He added: “I will be predominantly based in Cornwall for this year, to relaunch this restaurant and it will, no doubt, give my Frog restaurant a run for its money. Frog will be our only tasting menu restaurant in the group, which showcases all ingredients around the British Isles.
“This Ugly Butterfly restaurant will have food stations, so the guests can see dishes being made – there will be theatre, there will be smiles and, most importantly, there will be a real celebration of the best of the South-West.”
Veryan Palmer, executive director at the Headland, said: “We are excited to be welcoming Ugly Butterfly by Adam Handling to the Headland to offer our guests a new dining experience in our iconic hotel. The shared values of sustainability and community resonate between our operations, and we look forward to seeing the partnership develop.”
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It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution
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