COOL FACES: Meet Nick May – owner of the Alma Inn in the heart of historic Harwich, Essex

Quintessentially English Pub. We have a smattering of old bores of the pub, and it's a pub for everyone – serve bankers, sailors, farmers, fishermen!

I’ve been here 15 years now but I want to beat the longest-serving Alma landlord, who did 40 years in total! I used to run bars and restaurants in London mainly, and was eager to spread my wings, have my own place and get out of town, and I wound up here, first of all as commuter. Then I bought the pub and focused on that. We started with 6 rooms and now we have 10, but it's a lot less than the 700 rooms I used to run at the Strand Palace in London!

Our main success is that we are still here, and highly rated by locals and visitors alike. As you know, I love to serve the best local and seasonal produce - so great local seafood, lobsters and mussels, fish and high quality steaks, basically things I like to eat myself. We also pride ourselves on an excellent breakfast. It's pub food but high quality, and a lot of people come all the way to Harwich to eat it, which makes me happy. That and the fact that they can stay overnight too, which means we also make some money while we sleep!

Covid, without question, until furlough saved us! It was a stroke of luck that we had just received planning permission for our next door restaurant and rooms, so we were able to focus on that during lockdown.

I love the large front guest room with the oriel window, but what I like best is the building, and all its old beams and what they tell us about the building (and Harwich) over the years. I’ve got very into old architecture since I bought the Alma – I love a noggin and a stopchampfer! – and I’m very involved with the local historical society. We recently did a survey of all the buildings that were here when the Mayflower left on its journey – 50–60 properties, all still standing, believe it or not. The building next door, which houses some of our rooms and the restaurant, dates from 1520 and housed a salthouse or fish processor for provisioning ships leaving on long voyages – maybe it even provisioned the Mayflower!

An Australian came in and ordered a pork pie and complained it was cold so one of the locals thumped him. The pub isn't usually like that, I promise!

Harwich punches well above its weight, partly because of the ferry to the Hook of Holland – in fact Harwich is signposted further away than anywhere else in the country, despite being very small. It still follows its medieval street plan and is confined to its own small promontory. The pub dates back to the 1520s and the buildings either side are even earlier - it's an amazing place and there aren't many other places like it in the country. 

Harwich itself is the hidden gem! Not many people realise that Harwich was the original home of the Mayflower – not in fact Plymouth as is widely believed. Harwich is so small it’s never going to become a big destination, and that partly what makes it so special – that and its unique and vast harbour and the views across to Felixstowe on the other side.  One of my favourite features of the town is the world’s oldest purpose-built and still-running cinema, the Electric Palace, built in 1907, which shows arthouse films, blockbusters, even old silent movies accompanied by live music. Don’t miss also the Napoleonic Redoubt Fort, hidden amongst the housing on the edge of the old town – one of the cells was used to hold troublesome characters during the war (go there to examine the Nazi-supporting graffiti on the walls!)

Well, the biggest addition to the business is our newish restaurant next door, which I'm hoping will become as much of a landmark food destination as the pub. I wanted to play with something new – I've  made sausages, I've butchered animals, I've done all the main parts of self-catering, and wanted to try something that was not quite fine dining, but finer than the Alma’s pub grub. And I wanted to design my perfect restaurant, because I hate choice – if I go somewhere I want to have the best dish, and I hate it if someone says 'it's all good'. I like being told what to eat… and I like being told what to drink, otherwise, you just choose stuff you know and like and never try anything new! So the restaurant has one menu that follows the seasons and changes every month. I have someone who forages for all sorts of things, including sea vegetables – various types of samphire, sea purslane –  plus we get blackberries, crab apples, alexanders (which some people call the 'forgotten vegetable' and grow prolifically around here - they're a sort of cross between parsley  and celery)  – all free food, but labour intensive.