Colmans Seafood Temple, Sea Road, South Shields NE33 2LD (0191 511 1349). Starters £9.50-£15.95, mains £13.95-£46, desserts £4.95-£6.95, wines from £21.95
Calling your restaurant a temple to anything is a bold move, but the Colman family in South Shields has an excuse, and it’s not the menu. The menu is great. It’s all the things you want from a restaurant like this looking out over the foaming waves, plus a few things you didn’t know you needed. The excuse is the building. Colmans Seafood Temple, which opened in 2017, is built out of a colonnaded bandstand first constructed in 1931. It quickly became known as Gandhi’s Temple although, according to local history, no one is quite sure why. There is no evidence of Mahatma Gandhi either worshipping or being worshipped here. There were, and still are, public lavatories in its base. Every seafront needs a set of those. For decades it stood lonely on its grass-lawned island, both a landmark and a refuge from the winds belting off the North Sea and up across Sandhaven beach.
