Vatika Restaurant, Hampshire

Magnificent cooked meals. Heavenly delicious. Definitely recommended!

Food was fantastic and similar to Benares which benefits from the same owner. Location is fantastic, situated in a vineyard with a terrific view. I went with a bunch of paunch-tastic middle aged blokes but given the view and atmosphere, go during the summer so you can appreciate the view and with a partner worth sharing that view with.

You won't find madras or poppadoms on the menu. What you do find is a menu that makes you want to order everything on it and when the first course came out, I thought I could manage everything on the menu. I mean it was tiny, I had to look under the plate and around my seat to see if I'd dropped anything. Different class though, when the sweet smelling bread came round, it came with test tubes each containing different flavours of salt. Now that you've got to taste!! Given the small portions, I actually set the sat nav to take me home via the kebab shop but then whilst waiting for the next course, Chef's complimentary dishes came to the rescue. All in all, it was a 7 course meal .... I think and though not stuffed as I would normally be after a curry, my stomach was content ... at least enough to settle for a McFlurry instead.

Expect to pay £100 per head so you end up ordering from the heart and not from the price list. As long as you choose from the first 5 bottles on the wine list, you'll be pleasantly surprised when the bill arrives. Came to about £80 for me and that's with half a bottle of wine each. I'll go again but need to sell the family first.