Wine and Dine on the Newcastle Quayside at St Vincent

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Dining on the Newcastle Quayside is one of the best ways you can spend your evening. The perfect location for date night, a catch up with friends or seeing the family, its wide variety of restaurants and River Tyne views make it one of the most popular places in the city for an evening out. Today I thought I'd share with you my current favourite spot to wine and dine on the Newcastle Quayside - St.Vincent!

Simon and I first stumbled across this little gem on a Saturday morning when we found ourselves strolling along the river absolutely gasping for a coffee. I suddenly remembered we were yet to try the brand new cafe bar on the Quayside and so walked into St. Vincent looking for a pick me up that soon turned into a lovely long leisurely coffee with a side helping of pastries. We instantly fell for the lovely European style vibes of the cafe and vowed to return to try out the breakfast menu or perhaps sample some wine.

St. Vincent is a little different to a lot of other restaurants in the area and it is actually pretty hard to call it just one thing as it works for so many occasions. Whether you want to enjoy the day time cafe with a relaxed lunch, indulge in the European chic style bar for after work drinks or go all out and book a booth for a wine and tapas evening with friends - it really is a wonderful place to hang out.  Open from breakfast until late, St. Vincent captures those lovely holiday vibes without having to leave the Toon.

Having already experienced St. Vincent during the day, a beautiful Summers evening seemed like the perfect time to indulge in an evening of delicious food and wine and experience some of the cafes other offerings.

Before we begin let me point out that I am definitely no wine expert, in fact I know very little. I like what I like and you'll definitely never find me in the wine aisle making informed and well thought out decisions on what bottle of wine to put into my trolley - I'm the kind of person that looks at a wine list in a restaurant and instantly feels a little overwhelmed.

So St. Vincent was perfect for me, offering a great chance to try different wines, all expertly chosen by our waiter who wowed me with his extensive knowledge yet never once made me feel awkward. If you appreciate a good wine but don't know where to start then St. Vincent is such a treat.  When I got stuck I was recommended different wines to try, all perfectly selected to compliment the food - it's always so great dining and drinking somewhere where they really know what they're talking about, as someone who is very indecisive I need all the help I can get!

If you were ever in any doubt about how seriously St. Vincent take their wine then you may be interested to know that Vincent was actually the patron saint of winemakers in Medieval Europe, the story being that an angry God turned St. Vincent into stone after he abandoned his mission to bring good wine back to heaven after becoming so entranced by the amazing vineyards in France that he forgot to return.

There are so many great wines to choose from at St. Vincent with their focus being on old-school yet not necessarily familiar, they select their bottles from small, independent producers - simply choosing the wines that they really rate and are excited to share with their customers something I think you definitely experience as soon as you take your first sip.  Plenty are served by the glass, a relief when you want to try something lovely but don't want to spend your entire month's wages in one evening.

The wine list at St. Vincent is a lovely walk through the bottles on offer with plenty of quirky wine facts to read, some helpful tips (removing red wine stains is the greatest life skill!) and a few dos and donts of wine drinking. I already knew that I should definitely not be holding my white wine glass the way that I do (you don't want the temperature of your hands warming the wine!)

I really appreciated trying some different wines including a sparkling red served chilled (mind blown!) and even an orange wine that before this night I didn't know existed. The beautiful rich orange colour of the wine is produced by leaving the skins on the grapes - it's delicious and if you're visiting St. Vincent you really must try it.

Of course, all great wine drinking is best coupled with some delicious food and St. Vincent concentrate on small plates, perfect for sharing with friends and ideal for enjoying with a couple of glasses of wine.  Most dishes are sourced from small, independent producers and the menu is split into Charcuterie, Cheeses, Vegetables, Meat and Seafood. This isn't a "Starter, Main and Pud" type affair, and we loved that our food came out as and when along with a lovingly selected glass of wine to compliment our choices.

We started our evening with the Cheese Selection (£13.50) which we decided to order after not being able to decide which cheese to go for! The Selection comes with all four cheeses available on the menu served with some very fancy looking crackers, a delicious fig jam and amarena cherries which were absolutely beautiful.

We loved the variety of the selection, it suited every taste with some stronger blue and some delicious creamy cheeses. I can honestly now see why everyone says how great wine and cheese are and if you're going to visit St. Vincent for anything I'd say you can't go wrong with a night of wine and cheese, it was such a lovely way to start our experience.

Following our cheese selection we decided to choose four dishes to share starting with the Leek, Parmesan and Truffle Tart (£7.00) and Crab on Toast with Crushed Broad Beans and Lemon (£10.80). My favourite was definitely the Crab, it was piled so hard on the toast that sharing it between us was a bit of a messy challenge but one we both thoroughly enjoyed.

The Small Plates arrived as and when they were prepared which I really enjoyed, I don't have the best memory so each plate arriving was a bit of a thrill, I had forgotten what we had ordered and as each dish turned up I couldn't help but let out a little "ooooh"!

The Macaroni Cheese with Summer Truffles (£8.50) and Duck Pastilla (£11.60) was up next.  Duck is my favourite meat and the St. Vincent offering was beautifully prepared (you must order if you visit!) and as for the Macaroni Cheese, I've never had one quite like it. If I ever spot Mac on a menu I have to order but I've never had one quite as fancy as this one, the seasoning made it extra special and I could have indulged in bowls and bowls of it.

If I'm being completely honest having already filled ourselves up with cheese and small plates I wasn't sure that we'd be able to fit in dessert but I was determined to carry on - all of the food had been so good I really wanted to see how the afters compared.

I opted for the Florentine Doughnuts (£5.50) they came served with a huge pot of zingy Strawberry Jam and Chantilly Cream - leaving all graces at the door, my polite dipping soon turned into full on dunking - the delicious light doughnuts were so good completely covered in sticky jam with a generous helping of cream on top. Definitely no polite way to enjoy these properly they were absolutely delicious.

I really loved my first experience of evening dining at St. Vincent and I'm so happy that we have somewhere on the Quayside that serves such great quality food and wine, it's different to anything I've experienced in Newcastle before and I really do recommend that you all give it a go - it's the best way to spend an evening.

Find St Vincent at:

29 Broad Chare
NE1 3DQ

saintvincentncl.co.uk/

0191 232 1331

I was treated to a complimentary meal and wine for two in exchange for this honest review.