Additional Features
All Food HomemadeAuthentic Portuguese Cuisine
Extensive Wine List
Family Friendly
High Chairs Available
Late Night Snacks
Licensed Until 1am
Outside Seating Areas
Packed Lunches
Seafood
Seasonal Menu
Fully Licensed
Description
Manuels is owned and operated by myself, my two sisters and my brother. I'm Alex Prada (short for Alexandra), my sister Ana Cristina Prada, my brother Ne Prada (pronounced Nae, short for Emanuel) and my sister Ju Prada (short for Maria de Jesus - no relation to the big man himself! We are all from the Prada family. We all grew up in Portugal with backgrounds spent both in the Algarve area and up north near a place called Braganca. Our father, Manuel Prada, passed away last year, but he always thought we'd do well together running a restaurant. Too bad he isn't here to see us finally getting our act together - we're really proud of the restaurant we've put together in his name.Ana and I have been involved in the UK catering business for 17 years. We've worked as food servers and managers of restaurants, mainly in London, ranging from Mexican restaurants to Argentinean Steak Houses. Ne and Ju don't have specific experience in restaurants, but have been catering for large, discerning guests all their life. Our father was active in the local community and our house in Lisbon was always a central meeting place for the local community to come and eat, drink and have fun.
Ana and her husband, Nolton, moved to the Island in 2003 when her husband took a role in the finance department at GKN. They've always spoken of the Island's super quality of life and lovely people - too bad it's taken until now for us to get together and move down with them!
Manuels will bring a unique and authentic Portuguese dining experience to the Isle of Wight. Most of the advertising so far has been pointing us to being a 'Mediterranean' restaurant, but its really Portuguese through and through. We decided to import most of our furniture from Portugal including most of the tiled art on the walls (it would have cost a fortune if Ju's friend hadn't done it for us) and the furniture inside and out is from Portugal. But, most importantly, we've been very careful to obtain an authentic Portuguese cuisine by importing wine, chorizo meat, presunto ham (its really tasty) and 100% fruit juices from Portugal. Portuguese food is rich in flavour - using natural ingredients to really accent the meat and fish we cook on our grille. We hope to really bring a new type of dining experience to the Island.
We realise that there are already some pretty good eating out options on the Isle of Wight, but we firmly believe that for the price, you can't beat our Portuguese way of preparing steak, seafood, and chicken, along with our superb wines, coffee and home-made desserts.
Once we decided that we wanted to bring Portuguese food to the Island, we started looking for a location and came upon a great place in Shepards Wharf Marina. Albeit, we had a challenge to convert former industrial units into a fully equipped dining experience, we knew that a partnership with Shepards Wharf in Cowes would give us access to both the busy sailing market and street access, to the busy thoroughfare by the floating bridge in Cowes. We have a custom-built deck on one side and a patio facing the boats - the best of both worlds.
We wanted to create an open and fun atmosphere in the restaurant. That's why we chose to put the kitchen in the middle of the place and let everyone see their food prepared fresh in front of their eyes. We work hard but enjoy life and love preparing good food. We didn't want to lock our passion for food behind closed doors - you can see what we do every step of the way.
In short, we're very excited and very proud of Manuels and welcome everyone to come and see us for breakfast, lunch, packed lunches, and of course, dinner. If anyone's been to Portugal and wants to try a dish not on our menu, let us know. We can prepare most things (as long as we can get the ingredients) and would love to give our guests a taste of Portugal on the Isle of Wight. If you haven't guessed by now, we're passionate about food and want to share it with all who are interested in good food without breaking the bank.
The invitation and challenge to try something different is open to all that like and love life.
Alex Prada, July 2008