In this roundup the focus is on Northumberland, so Tyne and Wear (North Shields, Tynemouth, Whitley Bay) are not featured – though they may be included in a forthcoming article

The Old Boat House, Amble

Back in the days when Freddie the Dolphin was attracting national headlines, Amble was a rough-and-ready fishing port with an excellent fish and chip shop: the Quayside Cafe and Chippy in Fish Market (it’s still there and still great). In the past few years, the area round the fish dock has had a facelift. There’s now a seafood centre with occasional pop-up dining, a cluster of “pod” shops and a fantastic Italian ice-cream parlour, Spurreli, that has drawn praise from Jean-Christophe Novelli. For seafood, the Old Boat House is the place. Slap bang on the harbourside in an old RNLI building, it has a no-frills interior of pine floors, simple wooden tables and chairs and industrial lighting. The fish is seriously good – and could include oysters from Lindisfarne, sweet pickled herrings, or soft shell crabs – though you need to pick carefully if you’re sticking to a budget. The owners also run the restaurant at nearby Blyth Boathouse .
• Mains from £10. Leazes Street. 01665 711232, boathousefoodgroup.co.uk. Open Sun-Thurs noon-9pm, Fri-Sat noon-9.30pm

The Ship Inn, Low Newton-by-the-Sea

This is the sort of ideal English coastal pub you expect to encounter only in a Famous Five book. The interior has a monastic simplicity and when the weather is bright you can sit outside and gaze at the rock pools and beach, which in the summer is covered with the sort of families who look like they’ve stepped out of a clothing catalogue (a friend once cruelly dubbed the village Boden-on-Sea). At lunch, the Ship serves rich kipper pâté from Swallow Fish in Seahouses, and high-quality crab and salad stottie cakes that aren’t awash with mayonnaise. Dinner is more expensive. The Ship also has a small brewery: the Sea Coal dark wheat beer is particularly choice.
• Lunch dishes from £6. 01665 576262, shipinnnewton.co.uk. Open Mon-Sat 11am-11pm, Sun noon-10pm (lunch served noon-2.30pm daily; dinner 7pm-8pm Weds-Sat)

The Joiners Arms, High Newton-by-the-Sea

Owned by the same operation that has half-a-dozen calculatingly overblown places on Tyneside – including Floritas Miami Bar and Tropical Garden (my daughter speaks warmly of it) – the Joiners has stone-flagged floor, log fire and carefully mismatched lampshades in the bar, while the dining room looks like the inside of the hotel in Twin Peaks. Food is more down to earth. Budget diners need to stick to the light bites section, where there are juicy Holy Island mussels in classic white wine and garlic sauce, and an excellent chowder of smoked fish, white fish and seafood. Sandwiches (served from noon till 3pm) include fish fingers with tartar sauce.
• Dishes from £7.50. 01665 576112, joiners-arms.com. Lunch noon-3.30pm (4pm on Sundays) Dinner 5pm-8.45pm

Beaches Seafood Shack, Alnmouth

Beaches restaurant has had a high reputation for its fresh fish dishes for nearly two decades, but is slightly too expensive for us. This year, however, the owners have opened a seafood shack next door for informal easy eating, and it certainly hits the spot. The fish here comes straight from Alnmouth bay to kitchen, to plate. Deliciously velvety crab soup and bread, paella pot with chorizo and seafood and California-style crabcakes all come in at under a fiver, while the half lobster with mornay sauce and chips is £9.95. There are tables and benches outside, or you can take your food and eat it overlooking the bay.
• Dishes from £3.95. 56 Northumberland Street, 01665 830006, beachesrestaurant.co.uk. Open Tues-Weds and Sunday from “lunchtime to early evening” (around 6.30pm)

The Jolly Fisherman, Craster

Craster was named as the birthplace of the kipper by Clarissa Dickson Wright (there are other claimants). The Jolly Fisherman is a neat whitewashed building on the harbour front with grand and, at times, wild views of the North Sea. Chef John Blackmore is a veteran of the Northumberland food scene and makes good use of local produce. At lunchtime, there’s crab soup with great sourdough bread from the Running Fox bakery in Felton, smoked-haddock-and-salmon fishcakes with proper chips, and warm crab toasts with sweetcorn chowder all for under a tenner. Dinner is pricier.
• Sandwiches from £5.25, Mains at lunch from £7.95. Haven Hill, 01665 576461, thejollyfishermancraster.co.uk. Open Mon-Sat 11am-11pm (food served 11am-3pm and 5pm-8.30pm (9pm in holiday season), Sunday noon-11pm (food noon-7pm)

Piper’s Pitch, Craster

This spic-and-span caravan has been a fixture in the main Craster car park for nearly a decade. Owner Andy Grant serves good coffee, cakes and scones, but most people come for the butties. The glisteningly buttery grilled Craster kipper bap is very fine, though arguably Grant’s most famous delicacy is the Auchtermuchty Sandwich. However, since that features haggis and bacon, it is outside our purview. There’s a new canvas gazebo to shelter under if it rains, which it might.
• Sandwiches from £3. Courtyard of the Tourist Information Centre, Craster, Facebook page. Open Mon 10am-4pm, Tue-Fri 10am-4.30pm, Sat-Sun 10am-5pm

The Craster Seafood Restaurant

Sharing premises with L Robson’s smokehouse, built in 1856, this restaurant has a slight South American tinge thanks to a Brazilian chef (which explains the presence of casquinha de siri – a spicy crab dish – on the menu). The interior is simple: exposed stone walls, pine floors, white wooden chairs – and the picture windows have fantastic views across the harbour to the ruins of Dunstanburgh castle. As you might expect, the emphasis is on produce from Robson’s, and the lunch menu features excellent smoked salmon, smoked haddock soup, homemade fish pâtés, and grilled kippers – smoked for 16 hours using oak and whitewood shavings. Dinner is more elaborate and more expensive.
• Sandwiches from £5.95, mains at lunch from £6.50. Haven Hill, 01665 576223, kipper.co.uk. Open: Mon-Sat noon-2pm and 6.30pm-8pm. Closed Sunday

The Olde Ship Inn, Seahouses

I first ate here 25 years ago and even then the swirly carpeting brought back memories of the 1970s. Fitted throughout with a perfect storm of nautical nick-nackery, the Olde Ship’s snug bar looks like a captain’s cabin and seems to list slightly to one side (though that may have been because I usually visit fresh from the Farne Islands boat). It serves old-fashioned, pre-gastro-pub bar food that also includes excellent Holy Island mussels, smoked salmon fishcakes and locally landed hake as well as gammon and chips. There’s lobster, too, if your wallet is up to it, and good beer from Hadrian Border Brewery.
• Mains from £9.50. Main Street, Seahouses, 01665 720200, seahouses.co.uk. Open daily, lunch noon-2pm (sandwiches served till 2.30pm). Dinner 7pm-8.30pm

Pilgrims Coffee House, Lindisfarne

For all its many charms, the Holy Island of Lindisfarne is a bit under-served for food, despite having the north-east’s only oyster farm and some of the region’s best mussel beds. Pilgrims is a coffee bar set up a decade ago in an old bric-a-brac shop and its crab sandwiches are some of the beston this coast. The crab is from nearby Embleton and served on granary bread from Trotters in Seahouses. Owner Andrew Mundy roasts his own coffee beans in a shed in the garden. There are also excellent cakes - including caraway-spiked Cuthbert Cake named in honour of Northumberland’s patron saint – and good beer from the Wylam brewery. There’s a sheltered garden at the back.
• Crab sandwiches £4.95. Falkland House, Marygate, 01289 389109, pilgrimscoffee.com. Open Tues-Sun 10am-5pm, closed Monday

Audela, Berwick-upon-Tweed

Unfairly overlooked, possibly because no one is quite sure what country it is in (England), Berwick-upon-Tweed has much to recommend it. Even though some of the fresh seafood at Audela – an airy place just along the road from the Bridge Street Bazaar antique market – comes from nearby Eyemouth in Scotland, it is certainly worthy of a place here, especially since you can eat fish three meals a day. A breakfast of Craster kippers with toasted bread from James Ford and Sons is £6 and, at lunch, there is smoked haddock with spinach hollandaise, a poached egg and sautéd potatoes for £7.95. Local lobster features on the dinner menu, but that and other fishy mains clock in around £13.
• Breakfast and lunch dishes from £6. 41-47 Bridge Street, 01289 308827, audela.co.uk. Open daily 9am-9pm