Turtle Bay is a Caribbean themed Restaurant and Bar located right next the The Gate on Newgate Street. It opened around a year ago in Newcastle and can also be found in Birmingham, Cardiff, Exeter, Bristol and more. They have a daily 2-4-1 cocktail offer so I purposely left the car at home so that we could sample some of their famous cocktails.
It wouldn't be a day out in Newcastle without some shopping so we hopped on the early train from our home in Durham and before we knew it we were in Newcastle Central Station. We stopped off for a morning office in the nearby Starbucks before taking a gentle stroll to Intu Eldon Square where we scoured the makeup counters of Fenwick's, Boots and John Lewis for some birthday treats!
By 12 we were getting hungry so we headed out the back of Debenhams to our lunchtime destination. We were greeted at the door by a friendly young man who asked us where we would like to sit. We chose our table and were given menus. A jug of water was delivered to our table in anticipation of the spicy fare we were looking forward to sampling!
Turtle Bay specialises in Jamaican Jerk seasoned food and luckily we like our food spicy! If you are a little less keen on heat, however, you can ask to have your seasoning on the side. We had already looked briefly at the menu and knew that we wanted to start with the Beach Food Platter, a sharing starter for two however once we saw the menu the Cheesy Jerk Fries sounded too tempting to pass up so we ordered them too! We chose our first cocktail, the Jamaican Mule, and perused the main course menu. We decided to go for the 'One Pots' for our main course and sipped our cocktails while we waited for the platter and fries!
When the appetisers came we excited to tuck in as the smells were delightful and after skipping breakfast we were more than ready! We were certainly not disappointed! The platter came with a selection of spicy jerk chicken wings, pepper roti, sweet corn fritters and garlic ‘n’ herb flatbreads. Everything on the platter selection was delicious and we were particularly taken with the sweetcorn fritters which were amazing. The cheesy jerk fries were to die for with just the right level of spiciness. We decided that if we could sit in that same spot for the remainder of the day sipping cocktails and nibbling on corn fitters and jerk fries we would be very happy however more delights were yet to come!
Our main courses arrived soon after we had finished or starters and they were served in such large dishes we wondered how we were ever going to eat it all. We chose the Jamaican Browned Chicken - braised on the bone chicken in a rich tomato sauce with allspice, scotch bonnet, ginger and served with Caribbean dumplings and the Trinidad Curry Chicken - sliced chicken breast cooked in coconut milk and spices with mango, garlic & scotch bonnet, topped with coconut and served with roti.
We can report that both dishes were every bit a delicious as they sound! The browned chicken was what we would describe as a spicy stew and the curry with coconut had similar flavours to a Thai curry.
The portions were huge and we were way too full to try any of the desserts on offer but they did sound pretty delicious too! We ended our meal with a final cocktail, this time we chose the Bay Bramble which was cooling and fruity and the perfect end to a spicy lunch.
This was our first foray into Jamaican food and we were very impressed with our first encounter. We will most certainly be back to Turtle Bay to try some more of the menu and to have some more of those sweetcorn fritters!
Love Elle and Mimi x
Have you eaten at Turtle Bay? Did you like it as much as we did?
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