The Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell had high hopes of a Victorian pub in a “magnificent position” on a pebble beach overlooking the Channel. He had loved the Blue Pelican in nearby Deal, from the same owners; a local friend had vouched for it; the décor was sympathetic and the blackboard menu looked promising.
So he was sorely disappointed when “all through lunch, the place kept on trying to sink itself with moments of ineptitude and despair”. Perhaps the B team was on duty: the catalogue of errors included a waiter who struggled to get the simplest details right: red or white? Single or double espresso? Fried squid brioche was “dry and lacking in flavour”; skate wing was overcooked; panna cotta was “solid (a proper culinary crime)”.
As for the whitebait, “I was hoping to dispel a memory of eating such things in shoddy Italian subterranean places in the 1980s with my father, when a dish straight from those times turned up of soggy fish with not a hint of crisp batter. It was like a tribute act that was even worse than the real thing. It made me sad for those little fishies, caught in vain, abused by a reckless cook.”
William Sitwell - 2025-09-01
