Certain new restaurants I’m lured to semi-hypnotically, so rumours a few months back of an impending new venture from Dave Hart and Polly Pleasence slotted straight on to my “I’ll be there!” list. I still remember a long lunch seven years ago at their previous venture, the Folkestone Wine Company, where a piece of perfect pan-fried hake fillet topped with luscious squid and a zesty gremolata had me actually gasping with happiness. This was truly great cooking.
And I knew who the chef was, too, because I could see him through a hatch cooking my lunch while I sipped my appassimento. Hart has worked for Stephen Harris at The Sportsman near Whitstable, and over the years has run several other places all across Kent. Front-of-house Pleasence, meanwhile, recently had a hand in The Goods Shed, a twinkly, Dickensian-feeling market-restaurant next door to Canterbury West railway station. At the Folkestone Wine Company, the pair served up a simple menu of outstandingly good, French-leaning dishes. I recall Hart’s sweet soda bread with salted butter, as well as his homemade gnocchi stirred through buttery, wilted leeks and layered almost to suffocation point with good black truffle.
