The first thing to greet you at The Garlic Farm Restaurant – after the spacious car park, anyway – is a tall wooden garlic sculpture that sits in the restaurant’s courtyard, surrounded by a manicured garden area with an array of potted plants and flowers. The lush flora creates the immediate impression that a lot of care goes into making customers’ visits special. Idyllic views of Arreton Valley and surrounding countryside completes a picture-perfect situation, but The Garlic Farm’s team certainly don’t rest on their laurels as there’s a lot more than this to visit for.
Attractions at The Garlic Farm include the farm shop, which sells varieties of garlic and gifts; free tastings of all the farm’s chutneys, relishes, pickles and sauces; an education centre; a heritage centre and self-catering cottages in the grounds. Head into the spacious, light and airy restaurant area and you can look out of the large windows at the stunning peacocks and cute squirrels that wander around the grounds. In warmer weather, you can sit outside on the patio and soak up the sun.
The Boswell family have been growing garlic here for over 30 years, and, as Britain’s premier garlic farmers, pride themselves on the range of garlic-inspired dishes at the restaurant. The Garlic Farm’s imaginative chef has created a menu with a range of choices, and their use of seasonal vegetables and Island produce means that both Islanders and visitors alike return for the tasty offerings.
The staff suggested that we try the mezze sharing platter, and we loved its compendium of dishes. It was an enormous helping of food, which included garlic ciabatta, hot ham hock with mustard sauce, olives neatly stuffed with garlic, particularly delicious garlic mushrooms, mackerel paté, crispy fried mozzarella and fried sweet potato. Oh, and a side salad. Why not, I suppose. Once we got to it, there were plenty of tempting options for dessert, including, for those with a heartier appetite than I, another mezze platter. This selection offered a choice of six miniatures to try, but we instead went for a slice of cherry and almond cake and a fresh fruit salad served with coconut ice cream. We left feeling utterly replete, to say the least.
