Quay Arts Cafe, Newport
In what was the industrial heart of Newport, stands a quayside quarter of listed red brick buildings with an enviable position on the waterfront. Some of these are residential but, in the midst, is the Quay Arts Centre - "the Isle of Wight’s leading art gallery and venue for live arts events", according to its website.
As well as housing 3 galleries, a 134 capacity theatre, and a craft shop, the Quay is also home to a cafe. It is a popular lunchtime venue, used as a rendezvous for velvet-clad ladies of a certain age, men with sculpted pointy beards and lots of sandal-wearers of both sexes. It's also favoured by office workers, yummy mummies whose offspring are dressed in BabyGap clothes and arty-farties (like Cat) wearing those chunky framed spectacles that are so a la mode.
The stone-floored cafe is a capacious space, and the acoustics reflect its cavernousness. However, if you want somewhere less echoey to sit whilst eating your lunch or drinking your cup of tea or elderflower presse, you could always see if there's a spare seat on the sunny riverside terrace.
The QAC cafe is a friendly place and Cat was quite comfortable having lunch alone; Matt could only stay for a quick cup of tea before dashing off to Somewhere That Couldn't Wait. Having chosen leek and mushroom pancakes from the small but varied (mostly vegetarian) menu, Cat cleared a table of the previous occupant's debris and made herself comfortable. Matt had left enough tea in his pot for her to have a cup and she enjoyed this whilst waiting for her food. It was only a short wait before she could eye up her generously-sized pancake with its interesting-looking side salad.
The pancake was stuffed with a tasty cheesy sauce with quartered closed-cup mushrooms and tender pieces of leek, the whole thing topped with yet more melted cheese. It was accompanied by a taste of Waldorf salad, beetroot strings, celery, carrot, sliced cherry tomatoes and cucumber. The perfect amount for a lunchtime and served with enough speed to allow a quick dash around the Crafts Council-listed shop before the whistle blew on the factory gates.
The Quay Arts Centre cafe is recommended; it has an interesting menu, a good display of home-made cakes (to be tried on a future visit), free Wi-Fi and free art galleries to wander around when it is too inclement to sit on the terrace.
Visit the website: http://www.quayarts.org/cafe.asp
6 comments
The children's lunch box is great value (choice of sandwich, fruit yoghurt, cake, fruit juice and piece of fruit for £3.75), and yesterday the cake he chose was a large Belgian chocolate coated crispy that we ended up sharing. I had a delicious cod and asparagus gratin which came with a really interesting mix of salads. I like the emphasis on healthy food.
It's such a pleasant place to eat, nice and airy, with the option to sit outside, and with papers for customers to browse through. Quick service, too, even when it's quite busy, as it was yesterday.
Afterwards we looked at the galleries, and my son was very taken with the current exhibition of giant drawings of animal faces upstairs and the work by IW school children.
I'm glad Cat approved. I do too!
My son predictably opted for the children's lunch (£3.95) comprised of tuna sandwich, yoghurt, fruit and half a slice of cake, and fruit juice.
Afterwards we saw the Eric Geddes exhibition in all three of the galleries, and met the artist on the way round. My son was fascinated by Geddes' seaside sculptures of found objects. It might inspire us to get arty next time we help out with a beach clean-up at Brighstone. Who knew plastic bottles could look so beautiful!
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