Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2010 | Page 142

food

Island Life - October/November 2010

Ventnor's hidden gem
It’s a looking-glass world, one of
opposites where nothing is as you
would expect. The Hillside Hotel is a
Georgian House run by Gert and Anna.
They have meticulously restored it, but
in a minimalist simplicity far removed
from its original style, and – and this
is the truly audacious bit – they have
changed the rules about how and when
their guests can eat.
At Hillside, dinner is at 7pm.
Non-residential guests are welcome to
arrive by 6.30pm, and can enjoy a drink
in the conservatory, bar or sitting room,
having chosen from three three-course
set menus (one meat, one fish and one
vegetarian) when they book, which
must be at least 24 hours in advance.
Cheeky? It’s a risky approach, surely.
To most chefs or proprietors it is
unacceptably draconian. To Gert, it
is about respect. “It comes from the
fact we like to respect everything
and everybody involved – from the
vegetables used in the dish, the animals
that gave their lives, to the chef
spending their time and the waitress –
and not least the guest.”
In cold print Gert’s words may strike
some as eccentric. But his measured,
slightly accented tones, reinforce the
notion that actually he is talking sense.
Restaurants waste food because they
don’t know how many people to expect
each night and what they are going to
choose to eat. Hillside’s chef, Gerald,
will shop for the exact ingredients he
knows he will use that night.
“Guests come in at a certain time,
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giving us the best chance to meet
their expectations – and hopefully do
a bit more. That means when we say
its freshly cooked, it is, because we
know exactly what we’re cooking for
whom and when. That means the
waitress is not standing looking at
the customers coming in saying we’ve
got all that ready for you – it can’t
be! So it actually shows most respect
to everybody involved, including the
guests’ expectations. Because we don’t
waste time or money on things not
being eaten.”
Surely that way of doing things is
very limiting? “You wouldn’t go to
a vegetarian restaurant and ask for
a steak,” says Gert, with impeccable
logic. “So you won’t come to Hillside if
you don’t like the way we do things.”
His incontrovertible sense of how
things should be pervades everything
he does. He and Anna had not even
visited the Isle of Wight before (though
they had sailed past it), not been in the
hotel or restaurant trade, yet when they
saw Hillside – then a warm and homely
hotel but in dire need of physical repair
– they felt they had come home. Asked
why here, he spreads his hands and lets
his eyes take in the view below. “Look
around,” he says in his soft Danish
voice. “It was my dream. I had to do
it.”
He’s got a point. Hillside, nestling
under St Boniface Down, looks over
the town and the bay. “We loved the
people and the little villages – though I
think it’ll be more than 25 years before

we’re accepted as Caulkheads!” But
that, in itself, surely isn’t justification
for the of thousands of pounds of
investment in three new roofs, a new
garage, new plumbing, electrics, floors,
under floor heating. The list goes on.
The refurbishment was stressful, yes.
Every loose bit of plaster threatened
to reveal some new horror, hence the
extent of the rebuild. But the daily
compensation was the teamwork
with his craftsmen: “They became the
people you were looking forward to
seeing, people you really respected for
what they did and the way they did it,
and also their positive response to our
very different approach. When you’re
working over six months with 25 guys,
renovating a building, the building
becomes the lead of the play, it says

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