The Terrace restaurant in Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight is situated not just handily near the ferry terminal, but literally on top of it, the outside dining area (or Terrace, if you will) regularly enveloped in shade as the giant Lymington ferry pulls alongside. This means that not only is the place very doable as a lunchtime day trip from a large section of the south of England (including - just about - London) but that the very first thing you see as you sail into town are the weather- (and Covid-) friendly dining pods full (and they usually are full) of happy families surrounded by all the signs of a good dinner.
Usually, to just settle on the very first place you see on arrival in a new town is a recipe for disaster, but fortunately I had it on good authority that the kitchens at the Terrace were operating on a level very much above "good for a tourist trap". The menu is devised at least in part by food-writer-turned-cook (or even cook-turned-food-writer) Tom (@eaterwriter) who is as enthusiastic about serving the best of local ingredients in the Modern British Bistro style as he is to ranting on Twitter about the various ills of Tripadvisor.
The menu dances that fine, and often treacherous, line between comforting familiarity and eye-catching food-literacy. Which means you have things like fish and chips, which the restaurant once attempted to take off the menu to a less than appreciative reaction, and the Rowley Leigh-inspired (presumably) hake boudin. Before all that though, house focaccia was sticky and warm and lovely, served with a perfect temperature parsley butter.
"Pan Con Tomate" came as a traffic light of three warm peeled Isle of Wight (obviously) tomatoes on toast, next to a kind of house 'ketchup' making use of the bits of the tomatoes that didn't come on toast, and a fantastic consommé. If ever a vegan dish makes you forget it's vegan, you know you're eating something rather special.
Gurnard came neatly sliced and - I think - preserved somehow, the flesh salty and firm suggesting some kind of smoking process. I could be wrong of course, perhaps it's just been too long since I've eaten gurnard, but there was definitely a hint of something clever done to it. The bisque was earthy and interesting, and a neat stick of toasted bread on top dotted with tapenade and a good garlicky rouille rounded all the flavours off nicely.
Hake boudin didn't disappoint either - a neat little cylinder of fluffy fresh fish mousse, next to a pea purée and lying in a bed of beurre noisette studded with irresistably salty nuggets of fried capers.
In addition to the three ordered starters we were treated to little bloggers' bonus bites of "Crab & Chips", which came in the form of confit potatoes in the Quality Chop House style, topped with a neat mound of fresh white crab meat. You can basically put anything on top of confit potatoes and it will taste great, but it seems to work particularly well with salty seafood, as anyone who's ever tried the caviar variant at QCH will attest. These were equally impressive, with excellent sweet crab and a dainty topping of curried vinaigrette of some kind.
Mains all wowed not just with technique and command of flavour, but almost pathological generosity. I have never seen so many mussels in a serving, and combined with a giant bowl of fries and half a pound of aioli this is surely the best value seafood dish on the island. The mussels themselves are worth a special mention though - huge plump things, full of flavour and silky of texture soaked in a gorgeous white wine and cream sauce, hardly improvable in any way.
Halibut came as another huge slab of bright white, meaty fish, sat in a buttery crab sauce and alongside a large piece of braised fennel. Potatoes were sweet and soft, and an interesting herb mix of chervil and chives added colour and texture as well as zhuzhing up the fish.
You have to be very confident in your own ability in the kitchen to put the words "poached chicken" on a menu and not worry people might imagine the worst. Fortunately, the sherry sauce that this wonderfully tender piece of poultry was bathed in was compellingly alcoholic and gently buttery, a really impressive bit of saucing. Charred corn of course goes very well with chicken, as is mushroom, specifically a slice of crosshatched king oyster, meaty and rich in umami.
It's possibly no surprise given the above we barely had room for desserts but a chocolate and hazelnut delice was notable not only for the generous (there's that word again) layers of caramel and chocolate but for a scoop of ice cream bursting with so many chunks of chocolate and nuts and toffee and who knows what else it was like eating a globe of frozen pick'n'mix. And that is a good thing.
And yes although we only had room for one dessert we were able to squeeze down a Chai White Russian, rather too easily in fact. This was also a very good thing.
The bill came to £41.50 each, which even factoring in a comped round of fizz and a bite of crab on toast is still something approaching a bargain in Cost of Living Crisis Britain. They didn't even add on service automatically, so we rounded to just under £50pp for what had been an exceptionally attentive and confident front of house even considering for the fact that, as I said, they knew we were coming. And really, you can't fake food or service like this, or turn it on when you know you're being reviewed. They really just are this good.
It's fitting that the Terrace restaurant, perched above the ferry terminal, is both the first place you see when you arrive in West Wight and the last place you see when you leave. As an ambassador for the island's hospitality you can barely find a better candidate, a confident little operation that could so easily have sucked up the lazy tourist dollar but has instead decided that in fact, how much better it is to actually be a bit ambitious, even at the risk of the occasional unhinged Tripadvisor review. And good for them.
8/10
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