A grand old seaside hotel - we were by far the youngest customers for a slow weekday lunchtime, and I am not that young. Service was friendly. Kid went with a selection of small plates - garlic and herb focaccia with ‘Oil of Wight’ (I’m pretty sure this was cold-pressed rapeseed oil), panko crusted fish of the day (plaice) with tartar sauce, and smoked duck with fruit compote on sourdough. I had the Gallybagger cheese souffle with IOW tomato cream to start and the honey and Dijon chicken burger with fries as a main. The soufflé was amazing, like eating a cheesy cloud. Couldn’t finish the burger which was quite substantial - it was hoovered up by kid with the endless stomach capacity. The brioche burger bun couldn’t hold up to the juicy chicken breast and tomato slices and the bottom half disintegrated. The fries came with a black garlic aioli which was unique - we had never tasted black garlic before and really enjoyed it. Husband had baked cod with tomato water, IOW tomatoes and crushed new potatoes as main and strawberries, champagne sorbet and honeycomb as dessert. He was very impressed with the cod. The dessert was a very small portion and I think he would have appreciated another quenelle of the sorbet.
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Good to read they are using local produce. IoW tomatoes are famous. To coin a phrase, they are “simply the best”. We buy them online every year and should be getting the delivery next week. They go to make Nigel Slater’s tomato confit as this link
Loads of uses for it. But best, simply on bread
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