👵🏼👴🏽 + 🐟🥔☕️
You’ve pissed on my chips, Trenchers (Spanish City, Whitley Bay, NE26 1BG).
I spent my childhood in the Spanish City. It’s nostalgia central to me. Bank Holidays on the strip. Nights out in Deep. Ice cream at Di Meos. Mark Knopfler. Sting. The Dodgems. 2p amusements.
The landscape has changed since then. For the better! There’s some genuinely lovely places in Whitley Bay now. It’s nice to see it come back into the modern zeitgeist.
We have been to Trenchers since it re-opened following years of refurbishment in 2018. Purely for fish and chips to-go, mind. They’re fantastic. Really good. Dare I say on a par with my lifetime favourite, Longsands? Cooked to order, no grease, fresh fish. Beef dripping chips. Ticks a lot of boxes. They’re great.
But for one reason or another, we still hadn’t been to the Trenchers sitty-in counterpart. Then, Eat Out to Help Out came around. Thanks, economy! There’s a set menu, normally 3c @ £22.50 which you can get for £12.50 which is solid value for 3 course anywhere.
Architecturally, if you haven’t been inside yet — the dome has been impressively restored. But the ‘in the round’ design of Trenchers at least does make it feel a little school cafeteria-esque. But we’ll come on to that.
I will mention the c-word because social distancing seemed to be a distant memory here. None of the many precautions we’ve seen in Newcastle, just a slapdash separate entry/exit doorway. Most of the customers here were of an elderly age, and there was no sanitiser, no masks, and uncomfortably close waiting staff. 🤒
The menu has all the fried goods you’d expect, including the defining fish and chips. Tried to mix it up but stay on seafood, so to start: calamari with salad and a blazing chill jam. There was some token attempt at dressing the salad, but a bit of an afterthought overall. Shame, as the (five small pieces of) calamari were well fried and had a punchy seasoning to them.
Kate had the prawn cocktail and commented ‘it’s like a sandwich filler’. I could see where she was coming from. Not too heavy with mayo, but some fennel fronds, chives, or some paprika, Worcestershire sauce, avocado, tabasco, anything(!) would have made it more interesting.
Fish pie — you can’t go wrong can you? Haddock, prawns, cod and (quite tough) salmon were swamped with honestly a bland potato filling that was severely lacking in salt. The dry peas on the side, 🤷🏻♂️. Not great. I mean, not terrible. But we expected more.
Hake with bacon, peas, and brown shrimp butter was the most alluring choice of main dish, and though the chunky hake fillet itself was fairly well cooked, it probably could have benefitted from a sauce, and just didn’t excite me whatsoever. There’s a pattern here…
Between this and the fish pie, I’ve made better versions at home. Injustice to the great seafood they’re cooked with, really.
Spanish City snatched Jesmond Dene House‘s pastry chef, though he doesn’t seem to be working at Trenchers, focussing on the Valerie’s Tea Room part of the business by the looks of it. The afternoon tea looks superb, so I don’t know why desserts are coming out of a display cabinet, and being microwaved by serving staff. For a gaff with such heritage, there’s just a constant whiff of cafeteria about it.
Rhubarb and blackberry tart was OK, not too sweet and with nicely crumbly pastry. Microwaving it didn’t pay it any favours though, same for the custard.
Finally, a lemon posset was pretty good, if a little ‘fridge soggy’.
It’s not like Restaurant Week where venues have an excuse to tone down the menu, so I can only assume Trenchers is made for both tourists, and the local grannies. They’ve got some good chefs in the venue so I don’t know quite what they’re up to, or whether it’s simply a case of know your audience, and that’s exactly what Trenchers is doing…?
We came with high hopes, and left, I’m sad to say, pretty disappointed. I 💖 basic food done well, but simplicity has to be backed up with tons of flavour, which we didn’t find.
Come for the views, and the magnificent North Tyneside coast. Support the refurbishment of a beautiful grade II listed building. Get some fish and chips to have on the beach. You’ll love it. But otherwise, don’t expect too much.
Contact: https://spanishcity.co.uk/trenchers-fish-chips/
Food hygiene rating: 5/5
Related Posts
