Cantina has, in the past, been one of our favourite venues ever. When it arrived in Ventnor, around the time Robert Thompson was winning the Isle of Wight’s only Michelin star of the millennium, it brought an unexpected taste of trendy London cafe life to the sleepy seaside town,... Read more
One thing the global pandemic has taught many of us is how to be flexible. Today the government announced the possibility of a ‘last resort’ lockdown to thwart a winter wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. For some, this might simply mean business as usual; laptop ensconced on the dining... Read more
The Isle of Wight has its own annually-spinning merry-go-round. Year after year, summer follows spring; in non-pandemic times we would be gearing up for the Garlic Festival, Ryde scooter rally, Pride, local carnivals and other fixtures on the Island’s perpetual calendar. But, for the second year in a row,... Read more
Fuelled by spontaneity and optimism; we decided to go out for dinner. No table booked, we just winged it, driven by the desire to eat in again after five long months of takeaways followed by a couple of weeks of dining al fresco on rain-lashed patios. It was a... Read more
ARCHIVE REVIEW: The Grill has closed. By the time you read this, we may once again be allowed to eat in a restaurant; with certain safety provisos, naturally. Certainly for us it will be a welcome return to dining at someone else’s table, not that we haven’t enjoyed our... Read more
It’s been exactly a year since we were urged to Stay at Home, Protect the NHS and Save Lives. A year of restaurants doing the are-we-open-no-we’re-closed-again hokey cokey (Hovid-Covid?) A year of intermittently eating out, but mostly relying on our latent cooking skills, with variable results – hello seafood... Read more
Dumpling Dumpling is one of those food wagons that we always make for. Over the last few years we’ve been running into them at various Island events, and even on the mainland. Every time, there’s no arguing with the delicious dumpling morsels. This really is cute, tasty and justly... Read more
Lordy! The landscape of the takeaway has changed enormously since the arrival of COVID-19. We were quite happy with our intermittent curry, the occasional Friday fish and chips and perhaps a cheeky chain burger. But, as the virus rumbles interminably on, so do our stomachs – for something more... Read more
Our bold mission to chart the Isle of Wight’s eating out offerings had something of a setback when eating out became illegal. Undeterred, we have returned to working our way through the Island’s takeaway and delivery options. This week we found an offbeat variation on the theme that we... Read more
As our tier four neighbours once again rummage through their pantry’s stockpile and scratch their heads for recipes which include chickpeas, three-hundred weight of pasta and a gallon of hand sanitising gel panic-bought in the early days of COVID-19, we lucky Islanders had the choice of three new restaurants... Read more
