Who’d have predicted Sandown would be the place where the Island’s newest big hotel would be built? As we walked in town we were amazed to spot not one but two massive cranes at work on the seafront. We pressed our noses on the glass at the under-construction Boojum...
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Long-standing Matt and Cat followers might recall our dining club, which ran for several years. Members could enjoy discounts at various selected Island eateries, but the buzz for us was hosting our monthly dinners. We have made some long-standing friends of our dining club members and many of them,...
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Another day goes by, another vegan restaurant opens. If plant-based dining in this country has spent the last few centuries cowering in the shadow of the all-conquering meat and two veg, its time has surely now come. Vegan food is out of the powdery cupboard, into your streetfood, and...
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One regularly asked question of us is, “Do you get free food?”. And our, oft-spoken answer is “No, not really.” All the food we review is paid for. Even the meals we write about for the Isle of Wight County Press are paid for out of our hard-earned. The...
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Some venues still think serving chips in a tiny metal pail is the acme of food trendiness. Other restaurants continue to puff out their chests, imagining that their knife-grating, gravy-liberating slates are the last word in food delivery (if only they were the last!). But food fashion, like any...
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In the week that Ryde was awarded a share of the government’s High Streets Heritage Action Zone fund, we thought we’d visit the town and eat in one of its most venerable venues. We could, of course, have popped into Yelf’s Hotel. The hostelry undoubtedly counts as historic, having...
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Once upon a time Italian restaurants were ubiquitous on every high street. You know the sort of thing: generic pasta and pizza, checked tablecloths, raffia-wrapped wine bottles and textured artex walls. Desperate to set themselves apart from the competition in a sea of look-alike venues, some took to oversized...
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Recently, we were asked by the lovely people at the Seaview Hotel to help curate a series of bike rides which would take in some of our favourite eateries in the north-east Wight. And so the Cycling Gourmand was created. However, these are not just any bike rides. The...
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Did you know Dan’s Kitchen in St Helens had closed? No? You’d been trying to get a table at that popular restaurant for ages, hadn’t you? And you didn’t, did you? Well, now you can’t. And nor can we, which is a shame, because it was good. But hold...
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It has to be one of the most idyllic inland locations for a restaurant on the Island. Nestled in a valley just outside Newport, the ancient stones of Staplehurst Grange warm in the evening sun. A long drive down a gravel track past fields of sheep, flowery hedgerows, beehives...
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Matt and Cat's Isle of Wight Eating Out Guide is published by Pinkeye Graphics Ltd
