House of Tides

House of Tides is the best restaurant in Newcastle that I’ve been to, and frankly it’s hard to imagine one better. It’s the sort of place you’d be more likely to find in London, and we’re lucky that it’s here.
My fiancé took me here for dinner on the night that he proposed to me (!!) We had a reservation for a Wednesday night at 8. Definitely reserve, even on a weekday — it wasn’t totally full up but at a place like this, you can’t risk walking in! When we arrived they seated us downstairs in a casual seating area, where we were told we’d have a drink and decide which menu we wanted. We ordered a bottle of wine (many selections quite affordable — surprisingly), and opted out of the wine pairings with dinner as we’d already had loads to drink. We got the 7 course tasting menu (£65 per person — wine pairings would’ve been an additional £40). As we sipped our wine, we were brought our first appetizer — beautiful oysters served on a bed of seashells, and some chicken liver parfait. And a non-​edible bowl filled with something that looked like seaweed, they poured broth over it to create this smoky scent and white smoke actually poured down over the table, for atmosphere. You know you’re at a fancy place where they bring you something inedible as part of your course.
After this, they took our wine upstairs where the main seating area is. The building is old and rustic, with exposed brick walls from the 16^th century (so we were told). It has that cozy feel you get in an old building, smaller rooms and lower ceilings, etc. We then enjoyed the remainder of our courses over the next two hours or so — no sense telling you what we liked best as the menu no doubt changes seasonally and often. Almost nothing on the a la carte menu that they show on their website was in our tasting menu, it was a mostly totally unique menu. They cater to allergies and preferences even — I told them I didn’t care for mushrooms and they left them off of 3 different dishes, each time I could hear the server saying «oh that’s the one with no mushrooms.» Nice touch!
Service was very attentive and they explained each dish. The dishes were beautifully presented, like artwork on the plate. Some of the plates/​bowls were quite fun — the soup was served in a tall, narrow bowl that was almost like a stone glass. Our favorite course was the onion-​chorizo soup with house made bread. How ordinary does that sound? Yet it was STUNNING. I’d love to recreate that soup! The fish courses were excellent, the quail was truly delectable, and I can still taste this sumptuous piece of foie gras when I close my eyes and remember. Everything tasted wonderful, nothing was overlooked at all. We skipped the cheese course (£8 per person if you go for it) as we really did get full, though all the courses were small. I think that quail is on the a la carte menu, by the by, as a first course. Go for it. Dessert was a very rich chocolate cake of some sort, my least favorite as I’m not a dessert person and it was so rich, but my fiancé loved it. We had another glass of wine at the end — they have some very unique wines by the glass including some from Uruguay and Lebanon.
Yes, it’s pricey — I think the bill came out to around £170 or so, for two. But you won’t have another meal like it in town, and since it was the most special of all special occasions, it was worth it. Well, ask my fiancé if it was worth it, he treated me! It was a night I won’t soon forget and you should absolutely spend a birthday, anniversary, or engagement dinner here!