What glorious weather the Isle of Wight enjoyed in early June! Good job too, as otherwise the music festival would have been a wash-out and Seaclose Park remodelled as a quagmire to rival last year's Bestival mudbath.

Making the most of the sunshine, M and C put on their paddling clogs and tippytoed at the Appley beach's water's edge, cooling their bunions in the limpid waters of the Solent. They interrupted this recreation for a cream tea at Puckpool Tea Gardens, eating their scones under a shady vine.

The leisurely day continued with dinner at Olivo, the new kid on Union Street's block. Situated in what was historically the old post office, the building's previous incumbent was the ambitious Smithfields. Alas, that restaurant closed for reasons not known to Matt and Cat, although they hypothesise that maybe the carrying capacity of Union Street for big, vaguely Mediterranean eateries had been exceeded. Or perhaps it was just too large a building to sustainably maintain. For whatever reason, it would be a brave or confident business that would take on such a vast venue. Now, one such has stepped forward. Does Olivo have what it takes?

Read more »

Matt and Cat have a good friend from the West Wight who's a bit of a bon viveur, and who enjoys exchanging notes with them on the latest Island eateries, preferably over a glass of some appropriate quaffage.

Over the years they've discovered a remarkable congruence; the more he denounces a place, the more M and C love it. It never fails. So when, during a recent encounter, the fine fellow hastened to pour the most extravagant scorn on Godshill's Loaves and Fishes restaurant Matt and Cat knew that they had to try it. Read on to see if the magic worked this time!

Read more »

Love and marriage, they say, go together like a horse and carriage. Or maybe like Peters and Lee, the interchangeable Ant and Dec, Matt and Cat, and Indian tapas... Whoah there! Indian and tapas?

Both spicy, perhaps, but a good combination? The new owners of Sandown's latest restaurant, SWAD Indian Tapas, seem to think so. Matt and Cat, initially sceptical about this cross-cultural culinary collision, decided on reflection that actually, the idea of Indian tapas sounded pretty good. After all, who hasn't looked at some bizarre item on the bottom of the menu and wondered if they'd like it. With tapas one can speculate a modest amount of money on a small dish and try new food experiences. M and C skipped to the seaside town one evening to find out what SWAD was all about...

Read more »

Some of Matt and Cat's readers visit this eating out guide with flattering regularity, apparently trusting - as well as being entertained by - the amateur ramblings of the eponymous bloggers.

Just as one might demand the same hairstylist year after year - as they are truly the only scissor-jockey who can whip lank greasy hair into a towering spiky mullet - so Matt and Cat have confidence in the venues of certain restaurant proprietors.

So it was, when M and C learnt that the business acumen behind popular upmarket Ryde restaurant Liberty's was involved with the refurbishment of Bar 53, they were keen to check it out.

Read more »

Visit the website: http://www.theblacksheepbar.co.uk/

The Isle of Wight is delightfully unsophisticated despite the regular and steady influx of DFLs (Down from London), downsizing to experience the mellowness that is Island living (see Guardian article 'Let's Move to Ventnor'). The Island's esplanades are empty of metrosexual man's preening narcissism, his skilfully dishevelled hair refusing to budge an inch in the blustery seaside conditions.

As well as the cosmopolitan man, other urban trends have also remained an abstract concept. Thankfully the Island's streets are not littered with the corpses of recently stabbed youths; celebrity tarts in pink velour tracksuits remain, like their personalities, satisfyingly two-dimensional on the pages of Heat magazine and property prices continue to rise, despite the rest of the world heading for a global economic downturn.

So, it was with some trepidation that Matt and Cat entered Ventnor's Met Bar, imagining it to be populated by zealously groomed young men with bodies hard from their gym workout or orange-hued women with nylon hair cascading down their tattooed backs. Thankfully, they discovered that The Met is a name derived from the eminently respectable Metropole Hotel! Phew!

Read more »