Now a 6-bed boutique guesthouse and wine shop, The Terrace Rooms & Wine has been featured on the front cover of Decanter and reviewed in highly positive terms by The Times, the Independent, the Sunday Times, The Caterer, Star Wine List and Conde Nast. The refurb was undertaken by Acorn Interiors and Vivus Design with Ashley overseeing every element of the design.
 
Since returning to the Island - to open The Terrace in Yarmouth with Ashley’s family - Tom had sought an opportunity to run a restaurant small enough to use only unique, small-batch Island produce. At the heart of The Terrace Rooms from September to April he runs twice-weekly Wine Rooms Dinners. Each night is a snapshot of Island farming & fishing from that week, with 95% of all ingredients produced on-Island.

Most meat is butchered by Tom from whole animals, particularly beef from Briddlesford Farm’s ex-dairy Guernsey cows, venison from The Isle of Wight Deer Farm, mutton from WH Weston Estates, and pork from Modern Home Farm. Living Larder supply 90% of vegetables, honey from Mary Case in Limerstone is the main sweetener and dairy all comes from Briddlesford Farm. Shellfish is landed in Cowes, Yarmouth, and Ventnor Haven, while fish is immensely challenging in winter & mostly focuses on the likes of flounder & gurnard landed as scallop bi-catch. Unique to meals this year are ingredients from Ventnor Botanic Gardens not grown anywhere else in the UK such as ginger, calamons, kumquats, lemons, eucalyptus, Szechuan pepper & prickly pear. You’ll also find elderflower, pepper dulse, alexanders, blackberries, and grapes picked wild locally & preserved.
 
Only fourteen guests are invited nightly, all eating together at 7pm around the property’s wine room table, itself surrounded by over 650 listings of wine. The collection is sourced from over fifty suppliers, few of whom are represented anywhere else on the island, and allows super-flexible, varied wine pairings tailored to each meal and dish.
 
The aim is to represent Island farming and fishing on the plate in an honest, straightforward way. Tom talks very openly on the night about preparation, farming, and sourcing of ingredients on the Island and the unique challenges this presents in the creation of dishes. His cooking style is ingredient-driven, simple, and uncomplicated, also exacting and built on 15+ years eating out around the UK as a professional restaurant inspector.