Laura Whittle is sales and marketing director at her family’s business, Whitby Seafoods
Something in Yorkshire that makes you smile
The Seafood Social in Scarborough - a great seafood café that's also an important social enterprise project. The cafe raises money for The Rainbow Centre, to help local people who are homeless or in dire poverty. I helped start the initiative and it makes me smile to know that we are doing something practical to help those in need.
A place you love to eat
Our amazing Whitby Seafoods' development chef Jason and his wife Sue have just opened Restaurant Number 20 in Port Mulgrave. I was stunned by the quality of produce and simplicity of the menu. I had bruschetta with rainbow chard and buffalo mozzarella, then crab risotto with chilli, fennel and lemon. Seriously breathtaking food!
To take friends
Jacksons Butchers in Ruswarp for a pork pie is pretty hard to beat! I also sometimes take my brother Edward a paper bag of Poor Bens (liquorice sweets), you can buy by the quarter at the Chocolate Box on Golden Lion Bank in Whitby; the exact same shop we bought them as kids. My other brother Daniel and I like to exchange things we have fermented ourselves, I recently gave him some home-brewed kombucha and he made me sauerkraut.
A childhood memory
I went to school in Scarborough with my brothers and now we work together. Sometimes, if we were lucky and hadn't been too badly behaved, my mum would take us to the Harbour Bar in Scarborough, which is a family-run ice cream parlour practically unchanged from when it first opened in the 1940s. Their lemon top ice cream is one of my favourite treats. I recently took my boyfriend, who is from the USA, and now it's his favourite ice cream too!
A cultural go-to
My mum persuaded me to go see Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at Hull's New Theatre in April. Personally, I didn't want to go as I thought ballet was boring! However, I was completely wrong, the performance was convention-breaking with a menacing, almost all-male cast, and an audacious and witty re-telling of the story. Far from what I expected!
Inspiration outdoors
I took two monkeys, Jacob and Bea (my nephew and niece) to see some other monkeys at Flamingo Land and we all loved it! We went back in February when it was so quiet, it really felt like the zoo had opened just for us. The keepers were great with the kids too, talking about the habits of baboons at length and answering their millions of questions with a great deal of patience!
A place for indulgence
Kristy's Beauty Salon in Whitby - Kristy offers treatments that are hard to find and delivers them with her gorgeous smile and Yorkshire charm - which I'm sure makes them work even better! It's lovely to have such an amazing quality salon on our doorstep in Whitby, a real hidden gem!
A Yorkshire view that inspires
If you stand under the Whalebone Arch in Whitby and look to the East Cliff you can see every single place that appears in Bram Stoker's gothic novel Dracula. From Tate Hill Sands, where the Russian Schooner ran aground and Dracula came to shore, to the 199 steps, St Mary's Church and Whitby Abbey.
I'm never happier than when
I see our 'Whitby Scampi served here' swing boards outside pubs and fish and chip shops across Yorkshire. It makes me proud and grateful to know that so many Yorkshire businesses want to shout about serving our scampi - it's the ultimate compliment!
Three words that sum up your best Yorkshire life…
Spirited, compassionate and delicious!
