BLOG (Monthly Archives: October 2017)

This year Stephen Harris celebrates 18 years at the stoves of The Sportsman at Seasalter near Whitstable in Kent, a pub whose rambling exterior and bleak location belies the exceedingly fine cooking that awaits within and now commands a cult following worldwide. Stephen has just published his first cookbook too, so you can find out some of the secrets behind his simple but stylish dishes. I tried the restaurant’s tasting menu while researching an On The Road feature on the northeast Kent coast for Olive magazine. The menu is supposedly a mere nine courses, but when you include all the initial bouche amusement (pictured) and delicacies with coffee it’s actually 12, including, hurrah, two puds. Given its proximity to Whitstable, which has farmed oysters since Roman times and even has an oyster festival , the molluscs kick off proceedings – natives au naturel if you come in winter when they’re in season but mine were poached (pictured). Other highlights were the firm-fleshed slip-sole in a foraged-seaweed butter and the stupendously good homemade breads and home-churned butter (rightly honoured as a course on their own). You round things off with a soufflé as light as the clouds scudding across the steely skies outside (pictured). My article is in the December issue of Olive, on sale now.

Stark, inside a terraced house in the centre of Broadstairs in northeast Kent, does not even have its own inside loo yet. But this broomcupboard-sized restaurant is already making serious culinary waves, thanks to the stellar cooking by its chef-owner Ben Crittenden, who formerly manned the stoves at Kent’s Michelin-starred West House in Biddenden. As the name suggests, you come here,  in Ben’s words, not for plush surroundings.  but for “good food, laid bare.” I tried the restaurant’s six-course evening tasting menu (currently its only offering) while researching an On The Road feature on the northeast Kent coast for Olive magazine. Highlights for me were the starter of mackerel, watermelon and beetroot, that looks like a Kandinsky painting (secret ingredient: watermelon jam), and the duck terrine with hazelnut and ginger biscuit and a duck and hazelnut parfait. The citrusy blobs of orange puree encircling it cut through the richness of the duck perfectly. Many thanks to a resident foodie who tipped me off about this place shortly after it opened. The Good Food Guide has now included it in its 2018 edition, so do visit while you can still get in – and before the Michelin inspectors discover it. My article is in the December issue of Olive, on sale now.