T’s Tapas in Alderholt

The T in T’s Tapas is Tia-Mae McCarthy. Her brother Fin, a chef from the Fordingbridge area, bought a truck in 2025 and set up a gluten-free Spanish kitchen in her memory after she died that April. Tia loved tapas. The van is the practical form of that: small plates cooked to order, taken to evenings in Alderholt and Verwood, to markets, camp fields and private events.

The whole menu is prepared without gluten, which matters for coeliacs who often have to skip a food van altogether. Regular plates include meatballs, patatas bravas in more than one version, prawns, and a chorizo cooked with honey and red wine that was one of Tia’s favourites. Specials change when Fin and Izzy take the van out. Padrón peppers with spicy honey have appeared alongside the standing dishes.

This is not a high-street restaurant with fixed hours. In the first year the van covered dozens of Alderholt evenings, a run of Verwood dates, markets, brewery and pub events, camp field bookings and a handful of weddings, parties and charity jobs. Dates go up on Facebook. Private hire is available for events.

For visitors staying around Alderholt, Fordingbridge or the western New Forest, that is the way to find them: check where the van is that week rather than looking for a shopfront. The food is Spanish small plates from a mobile kitchen, cooked fresh, and the gluten-free kitchen is the rule rather than an option on the side.