Podcasts get recorded in spare bedrooms, in hotel suites with the air conditioning off, and in studios that sound like studios. Occasionally someone wants a room with something behind it: a place the guest is pleased to have come to, that sounds like somewhere rather than nowhere.
Royal Maritime House is a Victorian building on the Ryde seafront with a restaurant upstairs and two private rooms below it. We host interviews, filmed conversations and recordings there. Here is the honest version of what that gets you.
The rooms
- The 1982. The chef’s table, with a window into the kitchen. Seats eight to sixteen. Good for a conversation with something to look at behind it.
- The 1945. A larger room with its own bar and double sliding doors, for ten to twenty. The doors matter: they close, and the room is separate from everything else.
- The dining room and terrace upstairs, for anything that wants the Solent in shot or in the background.
Both rooms are on the lower ground floor, which is quiet, and both have Sonos, which can be turned off. There is no step-free access down there, so tell us in advance if that matters.
The honest part
This is not a recording studio. There is no acoustic treatment, no booth and no engineer on site. The rooms are hard-surfaced: marble tables, plaster, glass. Bring your own kit, bring blankets or panels if you are fussy about reflections, and bring someone who knows how to set a level.
What we can tell you is when the building is quiet. The restaurant is open to the public Tuesday to Sunday in spring and summer, and Thursday to Sunday in autumn and winter. On the days in between, the house is empty, the kitchen isn’t firing, and nobody is carrying plates over your take.
Why bother coming here
- The guest turns up. Lunch from Chef Robert Thompson MBE’s kitchen is a better invitation than a Zoom link.
- It is closer than it looks. Twenty-two minutes on the FastCat from Portsmouth Harbour to Ryde Pier Head, then a five-minute walk. London to the table in about two and a half hours.
- You get more than audio. A kitchen, a terrace, a seafront and a cellar in one building, which is a day of B-roll for a video version.
- Food is the point, not a break. If your episode is about food, you can record it, cook it and eat it in the same afternoon.
How it works
Tell us the date, how many people, and whether you need the room for half a day or the whole thing. We’ll tell you what’s free, what it costs and what the kitchen can do around it. Bigger productions, film crews and launches are covered on the events and hire page, and there is a longer piece on filming at the house.
If you are doing this as part of a launch rather than a series, the product launch guide covers the rest of the day.
Questions we get asked
Can you record a podcast on the Isle of Wight?+
Yes. Royal Maritime House in Ryde has two private rooms downstairs that can be used for recording, on days when the restaurant is closed to the public. It is not a treated studio, so bring your own equipment.
Is it soundproofed?+
No. The rooms are quiet and separate, with doors that close, but there is no acoustic treatment and no booth. Most crews bring their own kit and their own soft furnishings.
Can you feed a crew?+
Yes. That is rather the point of recording in a restaurant. Tell us numbers and we’ll suggest something that doesn’t need a service brigade.
How do we get there from London?+
Train to Portsmouth Harbour, then the FastCat to Ryde Pier Head, which takes 22 minutes. The house is a five-minute walk from the pier.
Read next
For business
Filming at Royal Maritime House
A location guide to the building, room by room.
ReadFor business
Launching a Product on the Isle of Wight
The rest of the day, if the recording is part of something bigger.
ReadFor business
Entertaining Clients in The Cellar
What the rooms do when the recording stops.
Read