Review: The Hut, Colwell Bay – a seafood lunch with a holiday feel

(Image credit: The Hut)

published 9 October 2025

As with all the best experiences, the journey to The Hut – which, in 12 years since it was founded, has turned into an Isle of Wight institution – is just as integral as the destination.

The restaurant urges guests to “go on holiday for lunch”, and throughout the journey to this Mediterranean-inspired seafood hotspot, you can see exactly what they mean.

The Hut offers arrival by land, sea or air. Land is via The Hut’s shuttle bus (drinks provided) from Yarmouth Harbour, while seafarers can drop anchor in the bay and await collection from one of the restaurant’s tenders; or, if you ask nicely, they’ll arrange you a helicopter.

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And while that’s certainly the way to make an entrance, it would deny you the close-up view of The Needles on your way to lunch, which the friendly young skippers of our chartered rib offered us.

Exterior shot of The Hut, Colwell Bay — The pastel-coloured huts set the tone

Sightseeing done, the rib pulls up a little way out into the harbour, and a tender is then sent from the restaurant to collect us. Stepping off the little dinghy onto a sun-dappled pier lined with pastel-coloured beach huts sets the tone immediately.

This is yachtie paradise – a salty, windswept core of a restaurant wrapped up in a beach-holiday exterior. The Hut started life in 2013 as “Crusoe’s Cafe” – a small, laid-back beach bar with a crazy-golf course that has since become established as a thriving restaurant (and, along the way, spawned its own micro-economy of local rib charter businesses ferrying diners over from the mainland).

It now seats 180 diners, plus 50 in the bar and 26 for private dining. The “Main Deck” area offers picturesque views of Colwell Bay and has an extendable roof for rainy days. There’s no need for that on our visit, though. Squint and you could be in Majorca. The vibe is less Solent, more Costa del Sol.

Diners eating outside at sunset at The Hut, Colwell Bay — You could almost believe you were on holiday

Incidentally, there is another branch of The Hut, located on the tiny island of Little Jumby, just off the coast of Antigua, in the Caribbean. MoneyWeek visited earlier this summer. But back to the Isle of Wight.

All 180 seats look to be taken when we arrive for lunch on a Friday in September, but the waitress assures us that this is a “quiet” day.

As such, the house DJ is sadly off-duty, but you can still tell this is the kind of place where people come to have fun. When the waitress recounts tales of guests dancing on the tables, part of you thinks you’re being encouraged to follow suit.

But as much as The Hut is a good place for a good time (and we’ll get onto the drinks in due course), it is still all about the food. The menu has evolved with the venue, but has remained true to the original beach bar’s purpose of fresh, locally sourced food.

Cocktails at The Hut, Colwell Bay — The Hut does a good line in dangerously drinkable cocktails

Dangerously drinkable cocktails

It’s always refreshing, particularly in a restaurant as heavily and obviously geared around seafood as The Hut is, to see vegetarian and vegan options that are clearly more than an afterthought.

A separate “plant-based” menu promises delights such as BBQ jackfruit tacos and gnocchi with sweetcorn velouté, vegan feta, dukkah (an Egyptian spice blend) and coriander. But The Hut lives and dies by its fish, so I opted for the scallops with pork belly (£22) to start, followed by lemon sole (£36). The scallops are tender and sweet, standing up to a robust XO sauce, while the sole is drenched in silky, warming beurre noisette and cut through with sharp capers.

We also tried the day’s “big fish” special of John Dory. The fish is subtle, offset nicely by tomatoes and caramelised onions. Other starters and nibbles of note are the popcorn shrimp (which come with a cajun mayonnaise that I would swim across Colwell Bay for – £12), slippery silver anchovies in an intensely lemony marinade (£7), and beefy monkfish tail (£21). The lobster is also on point.

A seafood platter at The Hut, Colwell Bay — The lobster is on point

Then, there are the afters. I am a sucker for a good treacle tart (£10), and the unorthodox promise of lemon curd on the side makes my decision an easy one. The treacle filling isn’t overly sweet, giving room for the lemon and the clotted cream ice cream to sing. The whole thing was a delight, although I had some food envy over the deconstructed banoffee pie (£10) that one of my fellow diners ordered.

The Hut has developed a reputation for being a perfect spot to sip rosé through the course of a leisurely afternoon, and it also does a good line in dangerously drinkable cocktails. I started with a negroni bianco, and with dessert I tried the Irish Old Fashioned, which consists of Irish whiskey, Aperol and Shanky’s Whip (an Irish whiskey-based caramel liqueur). It was deeply sweet, like burnt toffee – not a million miles away from a Werther’s Original. You could also opt for a Tiramisu Espresso or a Butterscotch White Russian; this is very much a cocktail menu for the sweeter-toothed. (All cocktails £15.)

It all gets a good slosh as the rib bounces over the waves back to Lymington. But, as with any holiday, there’s no harm in feeling as though you’ve made the most of it.

Dan was a guest of The Hut, Colwell Bay.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Dan is a financial journalist who, prior to joining MoneyWeek, spent five years writing for OPTO, an investment magazine focused on growth and technology stocks, ETFs and thematic investing.

Before becoming a writer, Dan spent six years working in talent acquisition in the tech sector, including for credit scoring start-up ClearScore where he first developed an interest in personal finance.

Dan studied Social Anthropology and Management at Sidney Sussex College and the Judge Business School, Cambridge University. Outside finance, he also enjoys travel writing, and has edited two published travel books.