Gorblimey! Now we know how Mary and Joseph felt a week or so before Christmas. (Christmas? Perhaps it was simply known as ‘Mas’ back then.) Trying to get dinner without a reservation at the height of the Island’s staycationing summer might be considered to be misfortune, to aspire to... Read more
You’ve got to have some sympathy for The Hambrough. Everything the venue subsequently does is compared to its early triumph with Robert Thompson at the helm. The talented chef won the Isle of Wight’s only Michelin star this millennium at The Hambrough in 2006, aged just 23, before going... 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
Over the long, long months, even years of the COVID-19 crisis we’ve been consistently amazed and delighted by the spirit and optimism of the Island’s food and hospitality venues. Not just keeping open in difficult circumstances, some restaurateurs have even gone so far as to set up entirely new... Read more
One of our favourite games is ‘Either/Or’, which is inspired by the famous conundrum of whether you would rather fight a horse-sized duck or one hundred duck-sized horses. Our version is, naturally, more food based. For example, if you could only have one thing to accompany your desserts for... 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
One thing which the Isle of Wight does, and has always done well, is be an incubator for enterprise. Much has been said about the death and resurrection of the high street, but if you were hoping for a return to the butcher, baker and candlestick-maker, the old model... Read more
The Ryde-based comfort-food of Pudding and Pie is something new and different. Until recently a delivery service of this kind would not have existed, unless you subscribed to meals-on-wheels. Who would order in a meal of piping hot pie, complete with veg, mash and yes, a delicious tailor-made gravy?... 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
