Wells-Next-The-Sea is undoubtedly the most beautiful town on the North Norfolk Coast, in a stunning setting with a bustling working harbour and gorgeous buildings.  Amazingly, it’s not packed with young artisan foodies coming up with creative uses of the relatively cheap rents on Staithe Street and the increasing number of people coming to Norfolk to search out great artisan food, but there are some if you know where to hunt and De-lish is probably the most interesting.

We treated ourselves to an afternoon in Wells and spent a very cheery half hour with Jules in his charcuterie, shooting the breeze and buying some of his meaty creations.  Jules is a funny,smart man with a dry sense of humour and I always think that if the first book you see on walking into a shop is a well thumbed copy of The Flavour Thesaurus, then you are in for a treat. He’s very much a one-man band, everything in the shop he’s made himself and it’s always him behind the counter. You won’t find Jules at Farmer’s Markets and suprisingly few of the gastro pubs around are using his products – which I think is bonkers. Chefs pay note!!

And, amazingly for such a piggy county, I believe he’s the only charcutier in Norfolk, which makes him very precious.

I probably don’t know as much about charcuterie as I should, and there’s a lot there that he’s made that goes beyond the standard salami and chorizo and I guess it takes a bit of nerve for the passing customer to go in to the tiny shop and be faced with some unfamiliar products. But Jules is very happy to take you through everything he has in that day and explain it in uncomplicated terms and suggest what to do with it. My advice is to get brave, walk through the fly-screen into his tiny shop, lean on the counter for a chat, learn from a flavour wizard and buy a little of quite a few things to play with at home.

We bought:

1) a piece of fresh fennelly sausage, which he calls Luganega da Wells (Jules plays with words a lot),

2) a small slab of polish bacon with a thick coating of smoked paprika (Slonina Paprykowana),

3) a slice of Pork Sortov, which he described as a cross between brawn and persilade,

4) a chilli beef salami sausage,

5) some mustardy pickled prunes

6) A bag of Trish Le Gal‘s (local author and allotment legend) salad (he did knock a bit off the price as it needed selling that day)

7) a tub of chilli coated crunchy beans for OH to nibble as we went up the hill.

And the whole lot came to a tenner. Which I think was brilliant. The key is, buy little bits and it gives you lots of opportunity to try different flavour bombs.

This is what I made for a quick and very simple De-Lish supper:

I chopped the fennel sausage into chunks and the little slab of bacon into lardons (as Jules had suggested) and fried them in separate pans until browned.

 

I put the bag of salad into a bowl (admiring how very pretty it was!) and mixed a dressing of olive oil and Womersley Foods Lime, black pepper and lavender vinegar.

Scattered the sausage and lardons still hot from the pan on the salad, poured the dressing over and served.

Easy and very wonderful – I was especially keen on the paprika-y lardons, with their crunchy outside and warm porkiness.

If you haven’t been to De-Lish yet then do, and soon. It’s a foodie paradise and, as with so many indie shops, needs real people with real shopping in mind to keep it.  Use it or lose it – which would be a crying shame.

De-lish is at 60 Staithe Street (about half way up on the left if you are walking from the harbour). He’s open 7 days a week, phone: 01328 711914 and is on Twitter as @dehyphenlish (well worth following – very entertaining).