The Isle of Wight Larder: What's in Season, and When
The Isle of Wight Larder: What's in Season, and When
Menus here get written in the morning, not in advance. That's not a philosophy so much as a consequence — when you cook on an island this small, you take what turns up. Here's what turns up, and roughly when.
People assume the Isle of Wight is limited. Twenty-three miles across, a ferry ride from everywhere, surely you're working with less. The opposite is true. The island has a warmer, drier climate than most of Britain, a sheltered coastline on the Solent side, and a farming and fishing culture that never fully industrialised.
What that adds up to is a larder that's genuinely distinct — not local for the sake of it, but better because of where it is. What follows is roughly how the year runs. Seasons move about, so treat the months as a guide rather than a timetable.
Spring
March · April · May
Spring is the impatient season. Winter cooking is all depth — braises, roots, things that took hours. Then in about three weeks everything turns green and the kitchen changes character completely.
Wild garlic
The first real signal. It comes up in the damp woodland across the island from March, and for six weeks there's more of it than anyone can use. Good in almost anything — folded through a sauce, blitzed into oil, wilted under a piece of fish. The window is short and it doesn't keep, which is precisely the point.
Asparagus
From late April, and worth the wait. English asparagus has a season measured in weeks rather than months, and island-grown spears reach the kitchen the same day they're cut. Anything beyond butter and salt is showing off.
Crab
Boats out of Bembridge and Ventnor start landing crab as the water warms. Early-season crab is sweet and worth treating simply. It gets more plentiful through summer, but the first of it is always the best eating.
Summer
June · July · August
The island's loudest season, and the one it's known for. If you only know one thing about Isle of Wight produce, it's probably a tomato.
Tomatoes
The reputation is deserved. The island's light levels and long growing season produce tomatoes with a concentration you don't get further north, and the growers here have been at it long enough to know exactly what they're doing. From June through October there's little reason to buy a tomato from anywhere else.
Garlic
The Garlic Farm at Newchurch has done more for the island's food reputation than almost anyone. Harvest runs through June and July, and fresh green garlic — pulled before it dries down — is a different ingredient entirely from the cured bulbs you get the rest of the year. Milder, juicier, worth building a dish around.
Samphire and shellfish
Samphire grows wild along the salt marshes through summer, salty enough that you season around it rather than adding to it. Classic with fish for obvious reasons — it's growing in the same water. Lobster and crab hit their peak at the same time, and shellfish moves from occasional special to something you can build a menu around.
Sweetcorn
Late summer, and another where the clock matters — sugars start converting to starch the moment it's picked. Corn from a field two miles away tastes like a different vegetable.
Autumn
September · October · November
The best cooking season on the island, and the one visitors most often miss. The crowds thin, the light goes low and gold across the Solent, and the produce turns rich.
Game
Pheasant and venison come into their own from October. Game is where a kitchen gets to show technique — unforgiving, needs proper handling, and done well it's some of the best eating of the year.
Scallops and mushrooms
Autumn and winter are scallop season, and hand-dived is worth the difference every time. Seared hard, served with something sharp against the sweetness. Wild mushrooms arrive in the island's woodland after the first proper rains — ceps, chanterelles, whatever the season gives.
Orchard fruit
Apples and pears land through September and October. Enough of it that the pudding section rewrites itself.
Winter
December · January · February
The season people assume is barren. It isn't — it's quieter, and it asks more of the kitchen.
Oysters
Cold-water months are oyster months, and the Solent produces very good ones. Raw with a squeeze of lemon, or lightly cooked if that's not your thing.
Roots and brassicas
Jerusalem artichokes, salsify, celeriac, cavolo nero, sprouting broccoli. Unfashionable ingredients that reward proper attention. Most of the technique in a winter kitchen goes into making a root vegetable taste like an event.
Cheese
Isle of Wight cheese is year-round but comes into its own in winter, when you want something with weight. Gallybagger — the island's hard cheese, named after the old dialect word for a scarecrow — has a nuttiness that works as well in cooking as on a board. It turns up on our afternoon tea menu with apple chutney, which is about as good a use for it as we've found.
How this shapes the menu
The practical effect is that the menu at RT Café Grill is written daily rather than set for a season. Some things stay — the grills, the classics people come back for — but the specials board moves constantly, because it has to.
It's more work than running a fixed menu. It also means that if you eat here in May and again in October you'll have two entirely different meals, which seems to us like the point.
The Thompson's tasting menu runs the same way, more so — each evening's menu is built around what's at its best that month, which is why it changes every time and why we only publish it a few weeks ahead.
Menus written daily, from whatever the island brings in.
Book a table at RT Café GrillFrequently asked questions
What is the Isle of Wight known for growing?+
Tomatoes above all — the island's light and long season produce exceptionally concentrated fruit. Garlic is the other signature crop, along with asparagus, sweetcorn and orchard fruit. On the water, crab, lobster, scallops and oysters.
When is the best time of year to eat on the Isle of Wight?+
Autumn, for our money. Game, scallops, wild mushrooms and orchard fruit all land together, the crowds have gone, and the light across the Solent is at its best. Summer is busier and better known.
What is Gallybagger cheese?+
A hard cheese made on the Isle of Wight, named after the old island dialect word for a scarecrow. Nutty and firm, good on a board and good in cooking. It appears on our afternoon tea menu with apple chutney.
Does the menu at RT Café Grill change?+
Daily. The core of the menu stays consistent but the specials are written each morning around what's arrived from island growers and boats.