Restaurant Review: The Stable, Southampton

A few weeks ago, I was invited to the opening of The Stable restaurant in Southampton - a rustic inspired pizza, pie and cider eatery which uses local produce in all of their meals. The Stable has been branching out across the country with a restaurant opening in Winchester earlier this year, and now Southampton - other branches include Bath, Birmingham, Bridport, Bristol, Falmouth, Fistral Beach, Plymouth, Poole, and Weymouth. 

The restaurant originated in Dorset which means that there were plenty of small distributors of fresh local produce like fish, meat and cider (YUM!). The creators started to experiment with different flavours of pizza, pushing it outside the Italian box of classic toppings - controversial but so, so delicious!

Although The Stable is expanding, it's important to note that all their ingredients are still sourced locally which means their food is super delicious - I don't know about you, but I love fresh local produce, especially from Hampshire county which has fish, meat and vegetables in abundance!

I brought my good friend (and videographer) Heidi as I thought this will be a great night to indulge in some delicious pizza, and a chance to catch up on all things creative! Upon arrival, we enjoyed a glass of cider and scoped out the joint - the interior of The Stable is awesome. Modern, rustic and arty - the place was buzzing. There is a balcony with a few tables if you want a quieter space, or tables with benches downstairs if you love a lively atmosphere.

It wasn't long before we could smell the tantalising scents from the kitchen - chefs started bringing out pizzas on wooden trays so we could sample pieces of every pizza available on the menu. One of the first pizzas was the Four Cheese Special - and boy was it good. Unlike so many other cheeses which taste like nothing or rubber, this one was flavoursome and melted to perfection - a combination of Lyburn Old Winchester, Stoney Cross, Barkham Blue and Lyburn lightly oak smoked cheese.

Another favourite of mine was the The Sandridge Sow: a mix of smoked Sandridge Farm bacon, field mushrooms, our fresh tomato sauce and mozzarella AND it's topped with a free-range hen’s egg! YUMMY! The most incredible pizza which you can eat at breakfast! Or any other time of day.

A special mention goes out to Wooly Woolston which introduced me to having lamb on a pizza and I found it was one of the best things I have ever tasted. The Wooly Woolston is topped with marinated lamb, mint, Rosary goats’ cheese, thyme roasted sweet potato (lamb and sweet potato are my new favourite thing!), roast onions, fresh tomato sauce and mozzarella...mmmm.....

If you love fish and seafood, you have to try King Canute’s Catch which is topped with Jackson‘s of Newton Abbot smoked mackerel, Severn and Wye smoked salmon, English spinach, and finished with fresh parsley and lemon. I was so against fish on pizza until I tried this one and I can never forget the delicious, fresh taste it left in my mouth. The Barkham Blues is a blue cheese pizza topped with herb roasted potato, Barkham blue cheese, roasted Spanish onions, English spinach - this pizza perfectly combines strong flavours of blue cheese, and soft, subtle chews of potatoes and spinach.

It's safe to say we ate WAY too much that night as we sampled every pizza available on the menu at The Stable in Southampton - and there isn't ONE SINGLE ONE I didn't like. I loved them all, and I cannot wait to come back and indulge in ALL OF THE PIZZA again! No but seriously, can we do like half and half because I don't think I can choose just one flavour to eat?