La vina

Ok, so this restaurant is not exactly on the seafront, but it isn’t far. Lymington is a fab port town popular for yachting with its three marinas. The area in general is a must to visit with the infamous New Forest nearby and a 40 minute ferry trip to Isle of Wight at your fingertips.
La Vina on the little high street, was a quick stop as we drove to Milton-​on-​Sea to check out Hurst Castle. La Vina could be classed as a chain as there are four of them, but I did not hold that against them being based in this little gorgeous Georgian market town.
We arrived for a late lunch at around 3pm, so it was very quiet (we were the only table). However, they were very welcoming and still afforded us attentive service.
Spanish food is my thing. There was a time I visited Barcelona three times a year for work, dated a guy from Coruna (Northern Spain) and befriended a network of Spanish settlers living in London. So, I know my Spanish food, regardless of the region. Of course, you won’t always get the authenticity here because of the climate and the inability to import some of the ingredients prevents that. But you can still stay true to the recipes by getting creative.
During our visit to La Vina (playing some great Flamenco and Spanish pop), we opted for one of my favourite dishes, Gambas Al Ajillo. This is a large king prawn (shell on) dish, cooked in olive oil, chilli and garlic. The prawn is supposed to be meaty but not too tough, so they ticked the box here. We partnered it with Pollo de mi Abuela, a chicken thigh dish cooked in white wine, garlic and cinnamon. It is supposed to be a dish from your grandmother «abuela», so therefore quite traditional. Whilst cinnamon is one of the oldest known spices used widely in Spanish cooking, I have yet to come across this in a main courses. Yes for savoury, sweet and Christmas dishes, but this was new. We also had Esparagos (asparagus), freshly char-​grilled with a chunky olive tapenade and fresh lemon zest. It was perfectly al dente. Asparagus is very popular in Spain, in fact you must try the white one.
La Vina is not like some of the authentic Spanish tapas small places I have been to in London, family run and Spanish team throughout, but it is a decent option if you can’t get to one or travel to Spain when you fancy a bit of Iberian cuisine.

I have given La Vina one stars because the food is tasty (otherwise we’d be looking at a zero here.). And for many of you that is what you will be after. There is a large selection of tapas plus a reasonable lunch menu (3 tapas for ten pounds), however if you have food allergies or intolerances I would be a little careful. The restaurant advertise their status for being great with gluten free. I would agree they are in fact very aware of gluten, their menu clearly states what items are and aren’t gluten free, which is very helpful. But I’m also highly intolerant to onion. No I’m not going to drop down and go into shock if I eat onion but it will make my life absolutely miserable for the next 72 hours. I won’t be able to sleep through the night without waking up in pain, i’m barely able to keep anything down, I feel like total crap and am basically bound to my bed in the foetus position until the effects have died down. Consuming onion is not something I would ever do by choice and I get serious anxiety when eating out.
When I arrived at La Vina I explained very clearly to the waitress that I wasn’t able to eat onion, that along with my intolerance to gluten I was also highly intolerant to onions. I asked if the Spanish omelette could be made without onion (it couldn’t, which is a shame as they use free range eggs and I really wanted to try one!), and the tomato salad (which was very delicious and could in fact be made without onion.)
Given I had gone into such detail and the chef was aware he was preparing these foods without onion, you think they’d notice when they poured tomato sauce fill of onion chunks over the potatoes. For their part, the potatos were yummy (as was the fried sweet peppers which I also had), and I tucked into them, not being able to see the tomato sauce under the mayo. It was only when I could actually see the pool of tomato sauce that I realised there were giant onion chunks. I’d already consumed half the plate. Naturally I panicked. There was no way I hadn’t consumed onion. When the waitress came over I informed her, politely, that she had served me onion. It was her reaction that really got me mad.
Firstly it was, ‘no that’s just tomato. That’s the tomato sauce, there’s no onion.’ I picked up a piece of onion and showed her that it was, in fact, onion. She said, ‘oh but, are you badly intolerant?’ I stared at her blankly and said, ‘yes, this is going to make me quite ill.’ She said she would check with the chef. About what? What can the chef possibly do now. I get that they hadn’t meant for it to happen, but if you say ON YOUR WINDOW that you’re good with food allergies, and someone comes in with an allergy, any decent restaurant will check all the products that person (who by the way was dining solo) has asked for, just to be safe.
The waitress came back and said that the onion wasn’t blended into the sauce so I would’ve known if I’d eaten it so maybe I didn’t eat it and hopefully I’d be fine. Really? REALLY? It’s not blended? So what? Onion chunks are the WORST for someone who can’t eat onion. And given it’s mixed with the sauce, plus mayo, plus potato it’s going to be hard to pick up on immediately.
It’s typical of a restaurant that has screwed up to try and minimalise their mistake. But to downplay someone’s food intolerance? No I wasn’t going to die, but that still doesn’t make it ok. To pull out the menu to check if onion is listed on there (of course it wasn’t or I would’ve asked for it without the onion) is pointless and insulting. They said, Do you feel symptoms? No, symptoms for food intolerance don’t usually start immediately. They’re nice enough to give you enough time to get home before making your life hell. So they said, well, Sorry, I hope you don’t get sick… here’s a voucher for a free glass of wine.
You essentially poison me and I’m compensated by a free glass of wine? Unhelpful. I don’t live in Lymington, I don’t plan to return anytime soon… and I don’t drink alcohol. Not that they’d know any of that, but when you make someone sick by not treating a food intolerance as seriously as you need to treat it cannot be downplayed or silenced with a free glass of wine.
Now, as expected, I have pain shooting through my stomach. I can’t sit up straight and I won’t be able to have a solid meal for the next few days. I’m really not happy.
Aside from that, the atmosphere is nice, and the food (if you don’t have allergies or intolerances) is nice. Had it not been for that onion in my food, i’m sure this would have been a very different review.