From the age of 16 I worked in a hotel and restaurant, I helped waitress for weddings and in a restaurant, got involved in housekeeping and eventually found myself working on the bar. I loved it, it was my first job and allowed me to have some independence but mainly because it is a family ran business and the people I worked for are some of my closest friends now.
The hotel I worked at was mentioned in the Doomsday book (so pretty old!) and is an old farm house, out in the countryside.
I moved to Newcastle three years ago for work, and whilst I’ve become very good at finding gin bars and places to eat in central Newcastle, they never quite feel like home so when our taxi drove down a country road and pulled into a restaurant tucked away behind the trees in Wickham I instantly felt relaxed. We walked through the beer garden outside (which by the way, has pumps at all the tables so you can buy a keg for your group, a gin bar outside, festoon lights and even sheep) and stepped into an eclectically, industrial, rustic and homely decorated restaurant which has a stone pizza oven inside, three fire places, arm chairs, mismatched lighting and even a garden type shed you can eat in (scroll to the bottom to see some more photos!).
It’s all well and good that somewhere looks good, but if you’re going for dinner you need the food to be good too. The menu has vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free options which are great. I had the King Prawns with garlic and chilli to start with (delicious), and my friend had the Calamari (which they made gluten free), I cannot confirm nor deny that I pinched any of her starter…
For my main I had to Pan-Fried Seabass and ordered the Thrice Cooked Chips, because in the interest of reviewing somewhere you really must take one for the team. RIGHT? Shade (my friend) had the Gluten Free Salami, Chorizo and Jalapeno pizza which looked great (see the photos!) Seabass if my favourite dish, I like it to be crispy on the top and soft so that it falls off the fork and it was perfect
We then couldn’t decide on dessert, so we ended up with the homemade Sticky Toffee pudding, rocky road cheese cake and white chocolate cheese cake. Chris (the owner) joined us so I promise we weren’t being greedy and ordering too many. The STP was my favourite and I’d recommend trying it.
Overall, a great new place to try and already booked to go back for Sunday dinner! Yum. Oh, and don’t forget to try the French 75s!
