Places to eat in Isle of Man

First class family-Italian atmosphere very handy for IoM Steam Packet terminal.

Pizza's crisp, generous, good Italian ingredients. Wine list sufficient, good quality and not overpriced.

Service beautifully weighted - as only Italians can do.

Great place to eat and relax - could not fault it.

Best reason to go into Douglas.

Favorite Dish: Pizza - so tasty you'll be happy you didn't order the more expensive dishes

We went on a Saturday night, there was a really nice atmosphere. It's very dark but that added to the atmosphere if anything. The food was top notch. There was a good choice of fresh local fish to choose from as well as other stuff. Fresh mussels to start were excellent and the halibut was perfectly cooked, the best I've had. Ditto for the steak, the best steak we've ever had, and we eat a lot of steak!! The french onion soup is supposedly famous but for once I could see why - it was excellent and it deserved the famous claim. Home made coffee profiteroles for dessert were outstanding. All desserts home made, everything in fact properly cooked from scratch and to order. The service was pretty good. Nice friendly owner was excellent, everyone else OK.

Favorite Dish: Got to be the steak. Fall off your fork tender.

Wow- THIS is what to expect when you go out for a meal- fantastic service, fantastic food and fantastic surroundings. Believe the hype about this place- I have travelled to many restaurants in many countries and this is up there with the best restaurants in the world. (seriously). The food was unbelievably fresh and nothing was too much for (I think it was Ian) who served us so wonderfully all evening. We were so lucky to get a table and it was by chance. I tried to book a table for this Saturday as I wanted to take my friend there who is coming over from Liverpool but they were full- such a shame. It's great to know there is somewhere you can totally depend on.

Sunday night in Douglas- what an adventure trying to find somewhere to eat! Finally I remembered reading about a cheap and cheerful Italian called Alessandro's in this very Restaurant guide a few days before. So we arrived- hungry and ready to just relax. To be honest we had been to Elliot's the night before which is just exceptional in every way so we really weren't expecting anything of that calibre but we still had high expectations. Firstly-it was FREEZING- we had our coats on the whole time- but did any of the staff pick up on this? No! The menu looked nice enough- the garlic creamed mushrooms came with about 6 mushrooms in a sticky yellow sauce- very very tastless and not value for money at all. Not a good start. Then ordering something that, according to the menu, contained spinach I was to receive a bland, overheated soggy pasta dish that had no trace of spinach but spring onions. It was a complete disaster. The staff were friendly enough but at the end of the day that simply wasn't enough. We headed back to the Hilton and wished we had just stayed there for something as it looked great and more reasonable.

Excellent Chinese food here on a quiet and wet Monday evening, still plenty of customers in, many seemed to be regular which always is a recommendation.
Usual difficulties choosing a meal, loads to choose from, Mrs Bonio very happy with the vegetarian choices too.
Enjoyed our meal here.

American style steakhouse / diner just down the road from our hotel, a welcome sight on a wet evening.
Appears to be family run and a very friendly welcome and comfortable seat for us.
Plenty to choose from on the menu, even enough vegetarian options for Mrs B. Tasty food for both of us and a couple of beers to go with it, enjoyed our visit here.

Sunday evening we wanted to go to a restaurant in Douglas for a nice dinner. This proved to be more difficult than I had thought, most of the places were closed. I don't know if we were unlucky and just tried the wrong places, but we were in the town centre of Douglas.

We finally found the Italian restaurant La Pizza open and a patron just leaving told us it was very good., so we went in.
We liked it. I had cod, my husband pizza, both was very good. They have a large wine menu, but only one red and one white house wine by the glass. Every other wine was by the bottle, so we decided on the house wine. The wine was good, not excellent, but quite nice. The black currant sorbet I had for dessert was really good.

The room is not too large, but the painting of an open Italian square on the wall give the impression of a much larger room.

Very fast and efficient waiters, my plate was whisked away while I was still eating the last bite, a bit too efficient for me.
Our bill came to about £ 40, including wine, water and coffee.

Much smaller than the George Hotel, but also much better is the Bank Coffee House in Castletown. It's on the way down from the square to the castle, a little place with only a short menu. Mostly it's sandwiches and soups, also some cakes, tea and coffee. The sandwiches are prepared fresh while you wait.
We ordered the soup of day and two sandwiches, but the soup was out. Actually the sandwiches were so filling, that I'm not sure if I could have finished the soup. We had prawn and crab sandwiches, both were very good.Together with two mugs of tea we paid less than £10.
The café is open from 9-4:30 on a weekday and from 11-3 on a Sunday.