It's carnival time again!

The popular Hastings old town carnival will be back again in little over a week’s time as the culmination of a week of events known as Hastings week.

Described by many as the Notting Hill carnival by sea the carnival is one of the highlights of the Hastings calendar. The old town will be awash with colourful floats and stalls with visitors and locals alike enjoying the sights and sounds while taking in the atmosphere.

This truly family friendly event seems to grow in popularity each year and attracts visitors from all over the country an indeed the world.

Hastings Old Town Carnival - Saturday 9th August 6pm for further info visit: http://www.1066.net/carnival/

Hastings 100 year anniversary marathon

To celebrate 100 years of the Hastings Marathon, the town will stage a special marathon on the 14th December. Fifty-one competitors took part in the original Hastings Marathon in December 1908, including six Olympic runners.

Organisers are trying to trace the descendants of the winners of the original marathon. Race director Eric Hardwick said he hoped relatives of the original winners would bring along their medals.

The first Hastings runner home in 1908 was George White, while Edmund Catt won the Silver Cup. "We want some of these local people or anyone else that took part in the 1908 race - any descendants or people that know about it - to please let us know," said Mr Hardwick.

The overall winner of the 1908 race was WT Clarke, of the Sefton Harriers in Liverpool, in 2 hours 37 minutes and 16.8 seconds.

Mr Hardwick said Mr Clarke's descendants had already been located.

St Leonards Festival 19th July 2008

The 3rd St Leonards Festival promises to be bigger and better.

The streets will once again resound with laughter and happy voices. The Kings Road will again feature a Festival Market with more stalls and a wider range of goods to tempt and delight shoppers. The entertainment lined up for Kings Road this year is fantastic and must not be missed.

The main band this year will be Maron Town, who will be performing on the stage in Warrior Square Gardens.

Jukanoo will be creating a wonderful carnival all around Warrior Sq. Making a third return will be all the various market stalls along Kings Rd selling exotic foods and vibrant goods.

The seafront will once again be the place to be for the more active and sports minded visitor. Run by Active Hastings there will be a variety of events for people to participate in. Warrior Square Gardens will once again feature a skateboard ramp to thrill our younger visitors.

Also on Warrior Square Gardens will be a range of community stands to browse and gather information on local groups and services. The much anticipated contributions and performances from local community groups on the main stage on Warrior Square Gardens will commence at noon. These are planned to include as many local groups as possible and will feature dance groups as well as music and song.

Hastings set to become art hotspot

The Jerwood Foundation, plans to build a £4million gallery in Hastings Old Town to house its main collection of 20th and 21st century British art. The gallery will be free to the public when it opens.

Simon Hubbard, corporate director for regeneration and planning at Hastings council said: "The town will gain a high quality cultural asset which will achieve a cultural-led regeneration of part of the seafront and provide the key for future improvement."


Cllr Jeremy Birch said: "This is a real opportunity for us in not just seeing a viable and exciting construction on The Stade but also being able to change the type of visitors to Hastings.

He said: "This could be life-changing for Old Town. At last we will see the culture and arts at the heart of regeneration."

Council leader Peter Pragnell said: "These are exciting times, not just for Old Town, but for the whole of the surrounding area.

"Jerwood is going to invest a lot of money in our town and we want it to fully benefit from it.

"We will work closely with the Jerwood Foundation, other organisations such as the Arts Council, the South East England Development Agency, the Hastings Foreshore Trust, and East Sussex County Council, and of course the local community, to do all we can to realise this vision."

Marathon session!

We had a fabulous Sunday.

A number of our prize athletic specimens amongst the regulars joined in running Sunday's Hastings Half Marathon. After the race we entertained a healthy crowd of runners and supporters to lunch.

The race is one of the top half marathons in the country and really helps put Hastings on the map. We always go out of our way to welcome runners - and for those staying in town the night before, we have a good selection of pasta for that important carbo-loading!

If you're visiting the town for the race next year - or, if you're local, why not book in for your pre-race Dinner with Intimo?

On tap?

The UK's biggest water provider is linking up with the government to end a long-standing culture of tap water "snobbery" by urging restaurants and chafes to routinely serve free tap water to their customers. Thames Water is to take the lead at a time of growing consumer dissatisfaction with bottled mineral water, and concerns about its cost and carbon footprint.

The initiative will come alongside a drive to encourage the UK hospitality industry to offer customers tap water as a matter of course. It is led by the government-funded Consumer Council for Water (CCW), which has drawn up plans for a national kite mark, or accreditation scheme, which would allow consumers to choose restaurants with the friendliest policies on serving tap water based on a "tick" symbol displayed on doors, menus and websites.

Thames Water - which serves about 13 million business and domestic customers in London and the Thames Valley - will this month announce a campaign to encourage catering outlets to serve tap water without people having to ask for it. The environment minister Phil Woolas said: "It is not up to us to say what people drink. But people pay significant sums for mineral water and I welcome any campaign to drink more tap water, which is of a better quality than it has ever been before." Britons drink 3bn bottles of bottled water every year. Half a billion are flown or shipped in from overseas, leaving a huge carbon footprint. Transporting bottled water in the UK is estimated to produce about 33,200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions - equivalent to the annual energy consumption of 6,000 homes.

But, just for the record - if you visit Intimo and would like tap water. It's quite simple.

Just ask!

Hastings City?

Hastings is one of several towns in Sussex which could compete for the right to become a city. The Prime Minister said this week that he wanted to see more cities across the UK and a number of Sussex towns have already thrown their hats into the ring.

Council leaders from Worthing, Crawley and Eastbourne have all come out and said they would welcome the elevation to city status.

Hastings Borough Council leader Peter Pragnell said he and his colleagues would be looking into the benefits of becoming a city.

He said: "If it is worth it, we will go for it."

The scramble to become a city started after comments made by the Prime Minister at a Newspaper Society event at Westminster.

He said: "We have 50 cities in England and we have 66 in the United Kingdom as a whole.

"I look forward over the next few years to many towns in our country becoming cities as we add to the number of cities in the UK."

Sussex already has two cities - Chichester and Brighton and Hove, but with a growing population the belief is the region could accommodate another.

And where better?

Don't believe what you read in the papers!

We'll say it again about the newspapers.

You shouldn't believe all that you read in them.

The BBC have dug up that old chestnut about the average meal cost in a British pub. And, of course, as soon as it does so, all the newspapers - looking for a bit of easy copy - go and repeat the damn thing. So, we have a story which is months old that suddenly gets front page news again. It all began when the Good Pub Guide reported that because of the drop in revenue caused by the smoking ban, pubs were hiking up the cost of their food to replace it. And as a result, the average cost of lunch in your local had now risen to £20.

So, we'll repeat what we've said before. We'd love you to spend £20 on your lunch here at Intimo. But there's no need - we've got a fantastic selection on our menu. All home cooked and prepared - and quite a few of our lunchtime selections are avaiable for a quarter of that!!

So, don't believe what you read in the papers - it doesn't need to cost you anywhere need that!

Coming up soon - our Christmas Party season begins next weekend. So, if you've not fixed up your lunchtime or evening social with friends, family or collegaues, you know where to come!!

Christmas is coming!

We're really gearing up now for Christmas - and our Christmas Party menu is proving poular.

If you're looking for a great place to share your Christmas fun with friends, family or colleagues then you should look no further than Intimo.

Great food - unpretentious; great prices - good value; and a great atmosphere - warm and welcoming.

Just how restauarnts should be in our opinion.

So, what are you waiting for - book today!!

Salty scandal

An investigation into the culinary offerings of some of the UK's favourite fast food restaurants has found "shockingly high levels of salt in some family, individual, and children's meal options", which in many cases could result in children receiving well over their maximum daily recommended limit in just one sitting.

That's according to Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH), which surveyed a total of "346 individual food and drink items and 264 advertised meal combinations" from Burger King, KFC, McDonald's and Pizza Hut.

CASH cites the example of a family of four tucking into Pizza Hut's Cheesy Bites Meat Feast, one Medium Pan Super Supreme, one Garlic Bread, one Potato Wedges, one Saucy Chicken Wings (Buffalo), and four individual Madagasca Vanilla Cheesecakes. They would, the organisation claims, consume an astonishing 12.3g of salt each - "over twice the recommended daily maximum limit for an adult (6g), and almost two and a half times the limit for a seven to 10 year old (5g) in one meal".

Down at KFC, meanwhile, a Deluxe Boneless Box "shared between four could contain 5.2g of salt per person", which is "almost a whole day's salt limit for an adult and over the recommended maximum daily limit for a child".

Menus aimed specifically at kids fared little better. CASH probed 21 such menu items and 48 meal combinations. It reports: "The salt content of the meal combinations varied from 4.3g of salt in a Pizza Hut children's meal (nearly 50 per cent more than the 3g upper daily limit for a child of four to six years) to 0.6g in a McDonald's Happy Meal of chicken nuggets and a fruit bag."

Intimo has a novel approach to salt on it's customer's food.

You'll find it in a small pot on the table - just next to the pepper.

Here at Intimo we don't offer fancy promotional dealsor Family Fun Packs. Instead,we believe in providing good food, home cooked and at honest prices.

So, the next time you fancy taking the family for fast food - think again and come and try us.

Intimo - a breath of fresh air. With no salt added.

Join us for a great Christmas Party Night

If you’re looking for somewhere special to celebrate this Christmas with colleagues why not join us at Intimo, for one of our great Christmas Party Nights?

Our Christmas Party Evenings are perfect for parties or groups of friends or colleagues – with a minimum party size of just 8 and up to 60.

The Intimo Christmas Party Night includes a delicious 4 course menu with a choice of starter, main course and desert plus coffee and mince pies - all this for just £21.95 per person. And our Christmas menu also includes a special offer on wine, with a free bottle for every six bottles pre-booked.

Intimo Cafe, Restaurant and Bar has a growing reputation for fine food and a great atmosphere so why not book now to avoid disappointment?

Tables for the Christmas Party Night are limited, must be pre-booked and are available strictly on a first-come, first-served basis.

Demand is expected to be high – so you are advised to book now to make sure of your places.

You can phone your bookings through to us on 01424 439080.

Come and see a show

The White Rock Theatre in Hastings has some great shows lined up for the Autumn with a host of top stars due to appear.

Frank Skinner is in town on September 14th; in October, Dr Feelgood and Marty Wilde and the Wildcats appear; November sees top tribute bands Think Floyd and Abba Mania on stage whilst in December the traditional panto Sleeping Beauty begins its festive run.

Check the latest list of shows on the left - but do remember to check with the venue for more information.

(Left) Abba Mania at the White Rock Theatre, Hastings, November 30th

Remember, if you are visiting Hastings for a show, why not visit Intimo for your pre-show dinner?

Call us to reserve your table on 01424 439080.

Bank Holiday Treats?

Forget the miserable summer we're having, why not come on down to the seaside this August Bank Holiday?


Hastings is a great place to bring the family with traditional seaside activities for everybody - all within walking distance too.


The Old Town of Hastings is quaint with some interesting shops worth a browse. Then, of course, the seafront is always worth a wander - with a fun fair for the youngsters and crazy golf for all the family.


And when you've walked up an appetite, why not come along and visit Intimo for a great Bank Holiday lunch, dinner or snack? We've a brand new specials menu being developed - and we'll bring you news of that right here very shortly.


And remember - don't worry about the weather - just make sure you're not hungry!!