Weymouth eats around its harbour. The Old Harbour is a working quay with fishing boats tied up on one side and restaurants down both, and the good eating in this town is almost entirely within a hundred metres of the water.
Beyond that, it is a resort of fifty-three thousand people with a substantial year-round population, which means the town has a proper food economy rather than a seasonal one — and prices well below the Dorset coast further east.
Custom House Quay and Trinity Road face each other across the water, and between them they carry most of Weymouth’s restaurants: seafood, Italian, Indian, modern British and a run of pubs with tables on the quayside.
Eating outside on the quay in the evening, watching the lifting bridge stop the traffic and the boats come in, is the thing to do here.
The fishing boats land crab, lobster, scallops, mackerel and bass, and the better restaurants buy from them directly. There are also stalls and small operations selling shellfish along the quay in season.
This is the reason to eat in Weymouth. Portland crab is the local speciality — the waters around the island are among the most productive crab grounds on the south coast — and it appears in every form from a sandwich on the quay to a dressed whole crab in the restaurants.
Scallops, lobster, bass and mackerel are all landed here, and the Weymouth Seafood Festival in summer is built around it.
For the informal version, the fish and chip shops along the seafront and in the town do a good trade, and the harbourside stalls do crab sandwiches that are considerably better than they need to be.
Away from the water, the streets behind the Esplanade — St Mary Street, St Thomas Street and the lanes off them — carry the everyday restaurants: Italian, Indian, Thai, Turkish and a good deal of casual eating. The town is not expensive and the standard is respectable.
Chips and cheese is, for reasons nobody can adequately explain, a Weymouth institution and a fixture of the town’s late-night economy.
Weymouth has a lively night out by south-coast standards — the town centre bars fill at weekends and the town has a reputation for it. The harbour pubs are the more civilised end: several are old, small and directly on the water.
New Year’s Eve in Weymouth is a genuine phenomenon: the town turns out in fancy dress in very large numbers, and it has a fair claim to being the biggest fancy dress night in the country. It is not a quiet evening.
Dorset brewing is well represented, and the county has a growing number of small producers, distilleries and vineyards.
Portland, five kilometres south, has pubs at Fortuneswell, Easton and Castletown and a couple of good places by the marina, with crab straight off the island’s boats.
Abbotsbury, twelve kilometres west, has a village pub and the tearoom at the subtropical gardens.
Dorchester, twelve kilometres north and ten minutes by train, has a wider restaurant scene than Weymouth’s for a smaller town, plus a good market.
Bridport and West Bay, thirty kilometres west, have become a genuine food destination — Bridport’s market and its independents are among the best in Dorset.
Portland crab, first and last. Dorset scallops and bass. Dorset Blue Vinny, the county’s blue cheese, made near Sturminster Newton. Dorset knobs, a very hard savoury biscuit which is more of a curiosity than a pleasure and should be tried once. Cider from the county’s orchards, and increasingly good English wine from the chalk.
Booking. July and August fill the harbour restaurants, and the carnival and seafood festival weekends fill everything. Book then.
Timing. The harbour is at its best in the evening. Lunchtime in August is when the day-trip traffic is heaviest.
Seasonal. Weymouth has enough resident population that the town does not close in winter, though the seafront kiosks and some seasonal places do.
Getting about. The harbour, the beach and the town centre are all within ten minutes’ walk of each other and of the station.
Breakfast in one of the cafés behind the Esplanade. A crab sandwich from a harbour stall at lunchtime, eaten on the quay while the lifting bridge stops the traffic. Ice cream on the beach in the afternoon. Dinner on Custom House Quay or Trinity Road, booked in summer, with the boats in front of you. And a last drink in one of the old harbour pubs.
The entire circuit is inside ten minutes’ walk, which is one of the practical pleasures of Weymouth.
Weymouth’s peaks are July and August, the carnival in August with its air displays, the seafood festival, and — genuinely — New Year’s Eve, when the town turns out in fancy dress in very large numbers and every bar in the centre is full.
Outside those, it is an easy town to eat in: the resident population of over fifty thousand keeps the restaurants going year-round, and you can generally walk in.
Reasonable rather than exceptional. The town-centre restaurants — Italian, Indian, Thai, Turkish — cater properly, and the newer independents behind the Esplanade do too. The harbour seafood restaurants and the traditional chip shops are the weakest link.
Worth crossing the causeway for. Portland has a handful of pubs at Fortuneswell, Easton and Southwell that are cheaper, quieter and more local than anything on the Weymouth seafront, and the Castletown waterfront by the marina has a couple of good places looking over the harbour where the Olympic sailing was held.
The island’s own crab goes straight from the boats to the plate here, and the café at Portland Bill — with the lighthouse and the Race outside the window — is a better lunch than its appearance suggests.
Weymouth has a good market and a decent food-shopping offer for a town this size, and Dorset behind it supplies well: Dorset Blue Vinny cheese, cider from the county’s orchards, and increasingly good English sparkling wine off the chalk.
For serious food shopping, Bridport’s market thirty kilometres west is the best in the county and Dorchester has a good produce market ten minutes up the line.
The harbour, on Custom House Quay or Trinity Road, where most of the good restaurants are and where the fish is landed.
Portland crab, from the productive grounds around the island. It appears everywhere from sandwiches to dressed whole crab.
No — noticeably cheaper than the Dorset coast further east around Poole and Sandbanks.
From the stalls and small operations along the harbour quay, and from the fishmongers in the town.
Lively — the town has a substantial night-out economy, and New Year’s Eve in fancy dress here is a genuine local institution.