Another big name restaurant to open in Cov

CARIBBEAN restaurant and cocktail bar Turtle Bay is the latest big name restaurant opening up in Coventry’s Cathedral Lanes shopping centre.

The popular chain will join the Botanist, Zizzi and Bistrot Pierre, which are all opening at what is fast becoming Coventry city centre’s go-to dining destination.

The Turtle Bay restaurant and bar experience promises to whisk people away to an island paradise, where they can relax and share Caribbean food with friends and family in an informal environment, with warm and friendly service.

Turtle Bay say its menu is inspired by beach shack and street vendors across the Caribbean islands.

It offers a large selection of starters, which are also designed as Tapas-style sharing dishes.

Diners can choose from beef patty, crispy chilli squid, garlic and chilli pit prawns, crispy whitebait. jerk pit wings, jerkglazed pit ribs, duck rolls, sweetcorn fritters, okra ladies’ fingers, garlic and herb flatbread and trini doubles - two puffed-up bara roti flatbreads, which come with curried chickpeas, cucumber and mango chutney and coconut shavings.

There are also special sharing platters - just jerk, vital veggie and seafood.

They each include a selection of items from the starters menu.

Turtle Bay also offers a selection of salads - a supervital green salad, a festival salad and a four grain salad.

It is also renowned for its ‘beach’ burgers. They include two-way chicken, pulled pork, street shack, jammin’ lamb and halloumi and mushroom.

There are also wraps and toasties on the menu - a West Indian wrap, a Kingston toastie and a jerk chicken flkatbread.

The extensive menu also has a range of jerk pit barbecue items.

They include jerk chicken, babyback pork ribs, braised pork belly, jerk lamb rump, jerk sirloin steak, West Indian steamed snapper, jerk pit salmon and Mo’ Bay chicken.

On top of that there are ‘one pot’ dishes.

They include curry goat, Trini curry chicken, Caribbean browned chicken, Guyanese curry duck, curry shrimp and mango, curry red snapper, Ital rundown (a vegetarian dish featuring coconut rundown sauce) and spinach, aubergine and sweet potato curry.

Diners can also choose from a huge selection of side orders ranging from cheesy jerk fries and sweet potato fries to dumplings and roti flatbread.

If you’ve got room left there are plenty of sumptuous puddings to choose from, including sticky toffee pudding, dark chocolate brownie, passion pie, rum and raisin bread pudding, spiced rum and chocolate pot, banana and toffee cheesecake and Caymanas upside down rum cake.

Of course some people just go to Turtle Bay for the cocktails and what an array there are to choose from.

Understandably rum features prominently and cocktails include Bay Bramble, Tease Me, Passion Rum Punch, Goombay Smash, Tingwray, One Love, Jumbled Julep, Raspberry Reggae and Reggae Rum Punch.

A range of Caribbean beers (mostly Jamaican) are also available. Turtle Bay forms part of the development of Cathedral Lanes shopping centre which is split into two phases.

The first phase was completed in 2015, comprising Las Iguanas, Wagamama and Cosy Club.

Then came along the announcement of The Botanist, Zizzi and Bistrot Pierre.