Jalopy Pizza

A car park in a back-street trading estate doesn't sound too promising a venue, but Bridport's St Michael's estate is home to a community of artists' studios, a regular vintage market and, on Friday evenings, the roving Jalopy Pizza van. A quirky little Peugeot JZ, imported from the south of France complete with wood-fired oven and some 30 years of service, Chez Jalopy is usually manned by two Aussie cooks. In their cramped mobile kitchen, they roll out fresh dough, load the toppings ("special" tomato sauce and Italian mozzarella, plus all the classic extras – mushrooms, prosciutto, pepperoni), before whipping crisp-thin pizzas out of the oven and into cardboard takeaway boxes. On busy evenings, it has a reputation for operating on Dorset time (as in slow), but locals get into the spirit of the thing: take wine and company and just hang out. Jalopy, incidentally, has just been shortlisted for the British Street Food Awards and a second van is in the pipeline.
• Jalopy (+44 (0)7794 182023, jalopypizza.co.uk) does Poundbury outside Waitrose on Wednesdays, the Square in Beaminster on Thursdays and Bridport on Fridays (all from 4-9pm). Pizzas from £4 (9-inch) to £7 (12-inch)

Downhouse Farm Garden Café

This farmhouse cafe is two fields away from the cliff-top footpath between Eype and Seatown beaches, but it's well worth the detour. You sit at sky-blue tables on lawned or cobbled terraces (there's a covered pavilion for wet days); the food is fresh, hearty and cooked to order by farmer's wife Nikki Exton – who manages to juggle gardening with lambing, growing herbs and salad leaves, making chutneys, baking cakes and dishing up crowd-pleasing meals. Try the soup of the month (nettle, wild garlic or broad bean and mint), the spicy lamb tagine (made with the farm's own organic lamb), Downhouse pork sausages with mash, or salmon and dill fishcakes with salad (the latter, like other dishes, is available in two sizes, from £7.95). The tea comes in big china pots; the scones, the rhubarb crumble tart, the Dorset cider cake, are all served with local clotted cream. And if you have to wait a while, enjoy the views across rolling National Trust downland to Lyme Bay on the Jurassic Coast.
• Soup with crusty bread £4.75, specials from £6.95, cream tea £4.95. Downhouse Farm, Higher Eype, Bridport (+44 (0)1308 421232, downhousefarm.org)

Town Mill Bakery, Lyme Regis

The bread is good (French-style artisan loaves with natural wild yeasts and no additives, baked by master baker Jorge Boni), but the essence of Town Mill's success – a case of join the queue – is down to a winning formula: grab a bread board (they don't do plates) and help yourself to a do-it-yourself breakfast (unlimited toast, jams, boiled eggs, bowls of Town Mill muesli), a hot lunch, afternoon tea (eccles cakes, apricot and cranberry scones) or a light pizza-based supper. In a converted boatyard shed (all pine, beams, blackboards and bags of flour) you get to elbow strangers at long, communal tables furnished with big dishes of butter and pitchers of water (white mugs dangle from hooks overhead) and eat whatever's available at the time. Every day is different, but a typical spread might include soup served with chunks of wholemeal, a savoury Danish (a whorl of dough stuffed with pesto, tapenade, spinach and goats cheese), Dorset rarebit (with cider) or rustic open sandwiches (doorsteps of sourdough piled with hummus and salad) – all at £5.75.
• Breakfast £2.50 (kids £1.50), lunches £5, cakes and pastries £2.50. 2 Coombe Street (+44 (0)1297 444754, townmillbakery.com). Other branches at 7a Tudor Arcade, Charles Street, Dorchester and 1 The Green, Sherborne

Dorset Farmers' Markets

NOTE: DORSET FARMERS' MARKET IS NO LONGER TRADING
The local farmers' market – which does the rounds of Dorset's country towns – is one of the best ways of sampling the region's slow-food goodies; the essence of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage landscape. As you hit Bridport's monthly market (in the local arts centre, a former chapel) the smell alone will bowl you over: Denhay Farm's bacon rolls (£3), the Dorset Coffee Company's fresh roasted coffee, Bridfish's smoked haddock, mackerel and eel, as well as local meats, cheeses, pastries and preserves. For an instant lunch grab a cheesy-pesto foccacia from Bridport's own Leakers Bakery (£2.50) or a savoury flan from Scrumptious Secrets. The latter's range of home-made tarts (at £3 each) include pea, mint and goat's cheese, roast chicken and sundried tomato and pissaladière (Provençal onion with olives and anchovies) served in a choice of shortcrust or a light and, indeed, scrumptious, gluten-free pastry.
• Markets take place at Poundbury (first Saturday of the month), Blandford (second Friday) Bridport (second Saturday), Sherborne (third Friday), Broadstone (third Saturday) and Dorchester (last Saturday). +44 (0)1258 454510, dorsetfarmersmarkets.co.uk (website launching in May 2011)

The Trawlerman, West Bay

The posh West Bay seafood option is to dine indoors at the pricey Riverside Restaurant; the budget option is to queue up for takeaway fish and chips from one of 10 little kiosks that line the harbour from spring until autumn. My favourite is Alfie's, which serves generous portions of fresh-battered cod with crisp hand-cut Maris Piper chips at £5 a go, but for a real taste of the sea, head for Nicky Tattershall's popular shellfish shop and cafe. Having closed for two years, she's just re-opened, still serving crab and lobster straight off her father's West Bay fishing boat, the Ellie Joe, plus locally sourced whelks, scallops, winkles, fresh prawns and crayfish. The crab's the thing to go for (fresh crab baguettes £5.95; cooked whole crab at £8.50 a kilo) and you can take away or eat on the Trawlerman's mini garden terrace a few yards up the road.
• 5 George Street (+44 (0)1308 425776, thetrawlerman.co.uk).

Café Oasis, Weymouth

This buzzy beach cafe overlooks Bowleaze Cove, on the suburban edge of Weymouth's seafront, with views across the bay to the Isle of Portland, a sheltered terrace and tables on white shingle. The decor is down to earth (none of your blue neon and driftwood nonsense) with woody tables and bright paintwork, and the food a mix of traditional English (fried breakfasts, cream teas, Portland crab salads, big mugs of tea) and Mediterranean dishes. Favourites include North African fish stew (a generous bowl of cod, seafood and roasted vegetables, in a lightly spiced soup of fresh tomatoes), mussels cooked with chorizo, onions and white wine, seared scallops with lemon, thyme and spring onions, or a homemade burger with salad and chips – all at £8.45, and all served with good music and reasonably priced house wines.
• Full English breakfast £5.95, lunch from £8.50, dinner from £9.50. Bowleaze Cove, Preston (+44 (0)1305 833054, cafeoasis.co.uk)

The Stable, Bull Hotel, Bridport

More pizzas … this time served in a converted stable (to the rear of the Bull Hotel) alongside gourmet pies and a range of West Country ciders. Furnished with bench seats, chunky refectory-style tables, an open kitchen and the odd hay bale, the idea is Dorset cider-house meets rustic pizzeria: the lamb roast pizza comes with marinated lamb, goat's milk cheddar and thyme-roasted sweet potato; the Bucky Doo with herb-roasted potatoes, Dorset blue vinney cheese and spinach; the Denhay Delight with smoked Denhay Farm bacon and local field mushrooms – all served on wooden platters with pizza cutters and optional chilli oil. Some break the budget (at £11) but they are big enough for two – I like to share my Bucky Doo with one of the house salads (wild boar chorizo and salami, for example) at £9.50. Gourmet pies include a beef and horseradish, or free-range chicken and apricot.
• Pizzas from £8.50-£12.50, Dorset pies £7.50, salads £9.50. Chancery Lane (+44 (0)1308 426876, thestabledorset.co.uk). New branch at Weymouth (13 Custom House Quay)

Bella's, Bridport

Part patisserie, part deli takeaway, Bella's speciality is fast-food lunches and snacks, mostly made to order using the finest local ingredients – free-range chicken, eggs and pork, quality meats from Bridport butcher Framptons, Clipper teas (based in nearby Beaminster) homemade cakes, sweets and quiches. Take a seat under the clock tower in Bucky Doo – Bridport's town square – and tuck into tubs of pick-and-mix salads, a super-size baguette (roast pork, stuffing and apple, £3.50), a slice from the quiche of the day, wedge of sticky chocolate fudge cake (£2.50 and big enough to share). You can avoid the lunchtime queue by phoning ahead with your order.
• Salad pots from £2.35, baguettes and sandwiches from £2.95, Dorset apple cake £2.50, mini bites three for £1. Bucky Doo Square (+44 (0)1308 424343)

The Potting Shed, Poundbury

This rustic deli-cafe is the offspring of Olives Et Al, east Dorset purveyors of Mediterranean olives (pitted, marinated, stuffed), oils and balsamics, olive-wood bowls and the like. It's on the edge of Poundbury (between the Dorchester new-town's pseudo Georgian heart and Dorset Cereals' muesli factory). It does, indeed, look like a potting shed (there's a garden centre next door) and you can sit inside or out, enjoy a proper coffee, choose lunch from the daily specials (red pepper and Gruyère cheese frittata with salad is £5.95, sweet potato and chilli soup £5.50). Good value are the "grazing boards" – a mixed deli-counter salad (ham marinated in Olives Et Al's own sticky onion marmalade served with hummus, artichoke hearts, granary bread), enough for two at £8.95. Alongside their own cakes (try the chocolate and Guinness), you also get Honeybuns' gluten-free cakes, Leakers Bakery breads and local beers (Piddle or Palmers).
• Coffee £2.10, cakes from £2.25, lunches from £5.95. Poundbury Farm Way, Dorchester (+44 (0)1305 216788, olivesetal.co.uk)

Quiddles, Isle of Portland

On a seafront esplanade below West Weares cliff, this curious boat-shaped cafe was custom-built to replace a run-down public toilet (there are still ladies and gents at either end) but don't let that put you off – the view of Chesil beach from Quiddles' rooftop sun terrace is one of the best on the Jurassic coast. The menu is mainly seafood (the owners are local fish and shellfish merchants) and consists of blackboard specials like Thai-style crab cakes (£7.95) and creamy crab wrapped in spaghetti (£9.95). There is also a simple everyday menu: soup, smoked mackerel pate, moules marinières (from £6.45) and homemade cakes (a light lemon drizzle at £2.25). Thursday is paella night – big bowls of the stuff cooked on a pop-up stall on the Esplanade and sold for £6.50 per head. No charge for the spectacular sunsets.
• Side orders (chips, bread, olives) from £2, cream teas £4.50, light lunches from £3.95. The Esplanade, Chesil Cove (+44 (0)1305 820651, quiddles.co.uk)

This article was updated on 10 August 2012