TOP 10 CHEAP PLACES TO EAT IN CANTERBURY
Tourists flock to Canterbury for its historic buildings, winding river and Chaucer associations. But how
does it fare for cheap places to eat? Tony Naylor updates a previous Guardian guide to the city
The Foundry The home of Canterbury Brewers (the brewery's stainless steel tuns are visible on the
ground floor), the Foundry also does a fine line in gussied-up pub grub. A plate of rarebit – the topping a
proper smooth, tangy paste – was not just well-turned, but given the ludicrous thickness of the bread
and the prosaic but bright side salad, it was also much bigger than its £4.50, "light bite" billing
suggested. Elsewhere on the menu, a sharing platter of pies, served with third-pint tasters of three
Canterbury beers, stood out (£10.95), as does the home-baked gammon, egg and chips, and the
bangers'n'mash with ale gravy (both £8.95). Of the 14 craft keg and cask beers on tap, the Gold (pint
£3.30, an amber bitter with a bristly hop character) and the excellent US-style, hop-forward IPA, Punch
(£3.75), are both recommended. One warning: I visited twice and, each time, the music was dire.
Guetta-ised chart pop, lachrymose R&B, Queen … Thank God the beer is so good.• Light bites from
£4.25, meals from £8.50. White Horse Lane, 01227 455899, thefoundrycanterbury.co.uk Marino's Fish
Bar PR Forget Michelin stars or AA rosettes: when eating at sub-£10 level, the signifiers of good food are
far more subtle. A wood-fired pizza oven, for instance, or Tea Guild membership are telling indications
that a venue takes what it does seriously. In chippy terms, the National Federation of Fish Friers' Quality
Award is just such a stamp of authority. Only the second chip shop in Kent to secure the mark, Marino's
is – on this evidence – at the capable rather than exemplary end of the new-wave chippy spectrum.
There were some quibbles: skin-on fish is mystifying; and the generally light batter had, in patches,
taken on a not entirely unpleasant firmer, bready quality. But the chips were fresh, fluffy and
characterful, the cod firm and the batter had a nice lactic tang. Even if you consider calamari and
Häagen-Dazs unnecessary affectations in a chip shop, Marino's justifies its Quality Award on the plate.
Or, in this case, the recyclable box.• Adult fish and chips £5.60-£6.40. 70 St Dunstan's Street and 159
Wincheap, marino-fishbar.com Brunch PR Brunch is one of those increasingly uncommon sights: a
family-owned, high street operation which emphasises local ingredients across a simple menu of
upmarket but fairly priced sandwiches, panini, a daily soup and a filling one-pot. A sample tub of slowcooked new potato, lentil, bean and bacon stew was big on smokey, tomatoey flavours, many of the
beans and lentils having melted away into a creamy paste. On a blustery day, it shut the wind out.
However, the bread, while good – it was a wedge from a large loaf – had gone a little stale along its precut edge. Small as it is, Brunch is a smart, modern space, too. • Sandwiches and one-pots £3-£5.60. 3
High Street, 01227 781427; brunchcanterbury.com The Dolphin Photograph: Russ Barnes Russ
Barnes/PR Look beyond the idiosyncratic clutter (Michelin men, toy cars, assorted industrial warning
signs) and the Dolphin is a rather handsome vintage boozer, complete with conservatory that opens on
to a neat garden. The menu is short, portions enormous and – judging from a smoked mackerel and
roasted new potato salad, served with thick doorsteps of wholemeal bread and butter (£8.25) – the
cooking a little dated. Tasty but dated. The plate had seemingly been pre-lacquered with balsamic and
there were even a few grapes hiding in the leafy undergrowth. Which you don't expect to see in 2013.
Despite such retro flourishes, it was a perfectly satisfactory plate of food. It's one of the few places in
Canterbury that serves a solid core of sub-£10 dishes in the evening as well as at lunch. The beer choice
on this visit (Taylor's, serviceable Wainwright, Sharp's Doom Bar, inescapable in Kent) was a bit boring.•
Salads and baguettes £8.25, main meals from £8.75. 17 St Radigunds Street, 01227 455963,
thedolphincanterbury.co.uk Canteen PR Part exam, part sandwich shop, Canteen is one of those healthy
wrap and salad joints, where you're faced with a bewildering array of possible ingredients and garnishes,
illustrated on brightly coloured flow charts. It is worth the brain strain. A falafel and hummus wrap,
dressed with a zippy, herby sauce, delivered a great nutty, garlicky lick of fresh, clean flavours. If you're
in a hurry or too hungover to navigate the choices, Canteen also does various pre-packed wraps, baps
and sandwiches, as well as soups.• Salads and wraps £3.95-£4.95. 17 Sun Street, canteenfresh.co.uk
Osteria Posillipo PR Wood-fired oven? Check. Neapolitan owners? Check. Needless to say, the blastcooked pizza at Espedito Tammaro and Enzo Esposito's friendly Italian is a cut above. Generally, toppings
are kept to a judicious three or four. These are the sort of bases – paper thin in the middle, nicely
charred, crisp to the bite – that need little more, in terms of augmentation, than a sprightly tomato pulp
and sweet pools of mozzarella. To keep costs down, you're best taking away at night, but, each
afternoon, until 6pm, Osteria serves a two-course menu (£9.95).• Pizzas £7.50-£11.95, pasta dishes from
£6.50. 16 The Borough, 01227 761471, posillipo.co.uk Willow's Secret Kitchen PR Outside Canterbury
Heritage Museum, you will find several A-boards, jostling for space, advertising two hidden-away rivals,
Willow's Secret Kitchen and Brown's Coffee House (Water Lane, 07729 167901,
facebook.com/BrownsCoffeehouse). Both pride themselves on the quality of their coffee, offering
single-origin beans in a variety of geeky vacuum, Aeropress and pour-over filter styles. Brown's even
displays the temperature that it heats its milk to and urges its customers not to add sugar. I must admit,
after such a big build-up, I found the flat whites a little disappointing at both places. They were much
better than the average high street coffee of course, but not quite the perfect amalgam of luxurious
smoothness and rich, rounded coffee heft you expect at this level. Food-wise, Brown's carries a small
selection of cakes and pastries (£1.20-£2.10), including delicious macaroons from local cake maker Just
One Cook. Willow's majors on interesting, affordable sandwiches (brussels pâté, ploughman's), salad
boxes and jacket potatoes. For £4, its full-breakfast bap was decent value, although the moist, herby
butcher's sausages were a lot better than the rather drab bacon. • Baps and sandwiches from £2.45
(takeaway), £3 (eat-in). 42 Stour Street, facebook.com/willowssecretkitchen The Veg Box PR Superrelaxed, super-friendly and busy in a way that suggests it reaches out beyond its core constituency, this
veggie-vegan cafe (naturally, the walls are painted a vivid green) is clearly much-loved in Canterbury. A
special of roast parsnip, leek and nutty spelt salad felt toppy at £8, but plenty of herbs and a few salty
black olives helped give it distinct dimensions of flavour. It also came with bouncingly fresh homemade
bread. The wider menu runs to soups, bean burgers, sandwiches, salads and tempting quiche (say,
butternut squash, smoked paprika and cheddar). You can wash all that down with select local beers,
including Whitstable Brewery's pilsner (£2.75). If you need something to read over lunch, pick up an
issue of stimulating anarchist freesheet Resistance in the wholefoods shop, downstairs.• Sandwiches,
soups and meals £4.95-£8.95. 1-2 Jewry Lane, thevegboxcafe.co.uk Refectory Kitchen PR An unusually
good flat white (£2) and a takeaway sandwich menu (from £2.60) that boasts free-range roast chicken
and relatively exotic fillings such as chilli and garlic sausage, are early indications of this cafe's foodist
rigour. The Refectory smokes and cures its own excellent bacon (rashers as thick as gammon steaks),
fish and cheese, and on its breakfast and lunch menus serves an engaging variety of ingredient-led
dishes. In terms of value, lunch seems the better option. Eggs Benedict for £8 is always going to sting, no
matter how good it is, and this was sound, rather than astounding. Lunches, such as ox cheek stew with
watercress dumplings, or aubergine and courgette fritters with a tomato salad, seem more sensibly
priced at £7-£9. • Breakfast £2.95-£9.95, lunches £4.95-£9.95. 16 St Dunstan's Street,
refectorykitchen.wordpress.com The Goods Shed Market PR The Goods Shed restaurant you may know,
and its adjacent, six-day-a-week market is regularly mentioned in dispatches too. Less talked about is
what a resource this place is for the hungry, cash-strapped traveller. As much as it's a produce market,
the Goods Shed is also home to several "street food" operations, which serve snacks and meals for
around £2-£7. These include Enzo's Bakery, with its savoury Italian tarts and overflowing baked panino
(enzosbakery.co.uk), and Curiously Kentish (curiouslykentish.co.uk), whose rustic sautéed potato hashes
are mined with their own corned beef and chorizo. You can eat at various communal tables and, at the
Bottle Shop, pick-up a cold beer (£3-£4.50) from an impressive range of craft breweries from the UK
(Marble, Thornbridge) and the US (Odell's, Flying Dog). The picks of the bunch, however, are Jonny
Sandwich and Patrick's Kitchen. The former specialises in A1 gourmet sandwiches (£3.50-£4.50), which
include fillings such as slow-roasted pork belly and roasted pear, or organic poached salmon with dill
and lemon creme fraiche. The owner, Jonny Butterfield, is renowned for cooking everything he can from
scratch and using seasonal produce from the surrounding stalls. When I ordered an (excellent) smoked
mackerel pâté sandwich, someone popped out from behind the counter, picked a couple of Braeburn
apples from the neighbouring grocer's and sliced them on top. Jonny's chicken pie (£2.80 a slice) is
legendary in Canterbury. The advertised chorizo was a little lost in the mix, but no matter: this was one
of the most ruggedly authentic chicken pies I have ever tasted, the pastry meltingly good. At the
aforementioned Patrick Williams' kitchen, things get more sophisticated. An experienced chef in the
vein of (his old mate) Rowley Leigh, Williams cooks very accurate, quietly elegant food, its apparent
simplicity underpinned by some very sharp classical technique. There are sausage rolls and sweet tarts
to takeaway and a short menu of dishes (£4.25-£6.75), such as fried egg on pork terrine, fish soup with a
saffron rouille or a highly recommended kedgeree, its fragrant spicing accomplished, the egg yolks still
soft and golden. In fact, Patrick is passionate about eggs, and serves breakfast (a dish many chefs think
beneath them) all day. His unit has three stools at which you can sit, watch him work, and, if you like,
quiz him about what he is doing. So, not only can you eat well, for under £10, but you can also get an
informal cookery lesson, for free. • Station Road West, 01227 459153, thegoodsshed.co.uk Travel
between Manchester and London was provided by Virgin Trains (virgintrains.co.uk). Accommodation in
Canterbury was provided by ABode Hotels (01227 766266, abodehotels.co.uk). Until June, ABode is
offering B&B plus dinner for two in four cities from £99. For more information on things to do in and
around Canterbury, go to visitkent.co.uk