The Hive

Aberaeron is a Georgian harbour town of painted houses on Cardigan Bay, and its most famous thing to eat is honey ice cream — made in the town, sold from the Hive on Cadwgan Place by the harbour. The recipe leans on local honey, which gives it a floral depth plain vanilla cannot reach, and the Hive has built a following that stretches well beyond Ceredigion, with the brothers Rhys and Rhodri Davies now running it and outposts opened in Cardigan and Saundersfoot. The setting does a lot of the work — a bench on the quay, the boats, the coloured terraces behind — but the ice cream earns its place, and the kitchen alongside it feeds people from morning to late. Honey ice cream by a Welsh harbour is one of those simple, specific pleasures worth planning a day around. Aberaeron is worth the drive anyway; the Hive is the excuse to linger.