This is a collection of short reviews of Matt and Cat's Christmas meals throughout December 2011.

See our conclusions and recommendations at the end of this article. We’ll be giving out some awards, too:

• Best value Christmas night out
• Best Christmas food
• Top service at Christmas
• Most festive atmosphere
• Overall best Christmas dinner

(Skip to the awards)

Cinnamon, Ryde
For a heterogeneous bunch of diners, it seems that curry is becoming a popular alternative to turkey as a Christmas dinner. Matt and Cat joined such a group in Ryde’s Cinnamon restaurant to enjoy their third seasonal spicefest. They were, surprisingly, almost the only diners there that night, which was probably a good thing given the size and liveliness of the party.

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Come with us on a mysterious journey. One filled with magic and wonder, mythical creatures and tastes from your childhood. There will be gasps, there may be tears, and there’ll definitely be a wizard conjuring up some truly provocative food.

Starter © Isle of Wight wedding photographer Chris Cowley

Matt and Cat’s last dining club event of 2011 was in a rather unlikely location, the Michael West Gallery at the Quay Arts Centre. The centre’s café is a popular lunchtime venue, serving wholesome grub, delicious salads and splendid cakes. The menu respects alternative diets which means that a party of meaties, gluten-dodgers and vegetarians can all find something to satisfy their palates. The café isn’t normally open for dinner, but on the night Matt and Cat and crew visited, it willingly exposed its mischievous after-hours underbelly.

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Visit the website: http://www.quayarts.org/

This is a Matt and Cat special event report

Hands up who’s ever heard it said that the Isle of Wight is stuck in the past. Quite a few of you - you can put your hands down now.

The sneerers have missed the point; it’s actually a compliment to this slow-paced, temperate county. As The Future might not be all it was cracked up to be, who wouldn’t want to live somewhere with a steadfastly local paper, long-standing businesses and time-capsule restaurants? As ever, the Island is on-trend: vintage is the new cupcakes and The Royal Hotel, a positive Methuselah of the Isle of Wight’s hospitality industry, hosted an event to underline the Island’s leading role in the retro revival.

Scheduled to coincide with the Michelin Guide’s centenary, The Royal courted vintage fans to help it mark the rare distinction of being one of only thirty hotels to be listed in every Michelin Guide Great Britain and Ireland since it was first published in 1911. With a programme of entertainment and - of course - food, Matt and Cat were delighted to receive an invitation to join the festival.

Regular readers will know that M&C love the Royal Hotel and held one of their Dining Club events there. Always pleased to be eating the cuisine of executive chef Alan Staley, they were particularly excited about the weekend’s menu. Phil Baldock, head of communications at Michelin UK was also going to be in attendance on the Saturday: the kitchen staff would surely pull out all the stops.

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Special report by our roving festival reporter, Wendy Varley.

Each year the quest to find the very best of what Bestival has to offer gets harder, simply because there is so much to hear, see, do – and eat – that any one of the 45,000 revellers in attendance can only sample a tiny portion of it. In 2010 Bestival was voted Best Major Festival in the UK, and I can understand why. So much effort and creativity goes into the planning, and despite the stormy weather in the run-up to the event this year, it opened on Thursday without a hitch (other than some very lengthy queues for the shuttle buses).

Unlike the Isle of Wight Festival, which has lost many of its local and niche food concessions in the past couple of years as its prices have risen, Bestival retains an abundance of interesting and mouth-watering food, much of it local. On Thursday evening, I stumbled across Ginger Mullet, a stall by the Bandstand promising "fabulous, fresh, local fish & fruit". It's run by Richard Quigley of Cowes' chippie Corrie's Cabin, and its neighbouring greengrocer. Ian and I shared grilled (unsmoked) mackerel, cooked to order so the skin was lovely and crisp, in a soft white bap with a choice of tartare or horse-radish sauce for £5; and new potatoes with butter and a choice of salts (regular, garlic or rosemary) for £2. We found both meltingly good. The simple but tasty meal set us up for the whole evening. And what a revelation to find a proper fruit stall at a festival. Five pieces of fruit for £3.50! Usually, I have to resort to the smoothie stalls for a fruit fix, so this innovation gets my full approval.

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By our Festival reporter, Wendy Varley

Since 2008 I've guest-blogged for Matt and Cat about food at the Isle of Wight Festival. My gripe last year was that, in contrast to previous years, there was no sign of local Isle of Wight food. The Farmers' Market had disappeared, along with other independent local stalls. Also gone were some of my favourite veggie or organic stalls from earlier festivals. Looking into it afterwards for Ventnor Blog, the cold-food only rule for the Farmers' Market put them off participating, and small, "niche" outlets were deterred by the hike in prices after Central Catering – the largest concessionaire company in the UK – was commissioned to manage the food pitches.

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