Tenterden Restaurant Guide

Former rock drummer Graham Garrett swapped his sticks for chef’s knives and learned his new trade from luminaries including Nico Ladenis and Richard Corrigan, before launching his own restaurant with his partner Jackie 20-odd years ago in this 16th-century weaver’s cottage. They offer “high-quality food and wine in a lovely setting with relaxed informal service” to an appreciative crowd – “we’ve been regular customers for many years and it continues to deliver a great night out, time and time again”.

“A wonderful, characterful village pub” (with rooms) dating from circa 1420, and which has survived the potential loss of charm that comes with doubling in size over the years. While it might be an “unpretentious” sort of place, that’s only “until you meet the food” – “nothing complicated, everything excellent”. The boozer is handily placed for a stroll to Sissinghurst Castle, the former home of Virginia Woolf’s lady love, Vita Sackville-West, with its famously lovely gardens. Top Menu Tip – “the homemade pâté and chutney can’t be bettered”.

2023 Review: This former coaching inn “offers a good range of well-cooked dishes in its small dining room” – “pre-booking is advisable as it’s close to Sissinghurst Castle and Gardens”. In the summer, “a pop-up pizza hut is open in the garden for a more casual dining experience”.

The “delightful dining room” with “friendly service” at former Gusbourne boss Ben Walgate’s biodynamic wine estate is just the place for a “truly memorable special occasion”, whether it’s a “superb relaxed lunch” or a “delicious celebratory dinner” (“we went on my wife’s birthday”) – while you’re there, you can “enjoy an entertaining wine tour” or stay overnight in “a really lovely room”.

2023 Review: “If only every pub was like this!” – “a quirky place” a short walk from the town centre which makes the most of its olde-worlde decor. The food is “competent and innovative”, and there’s a “good range of drinks”.

Set in a row of Georgian shops, Martin Peacock’s neighbourhood bistro (est. 2010) has become a real beacon for locals and visitors alike (“our trips to Rye are worked round whether we can get a table here”). On the menu, local Romney Marsh lamb or “super-fresh” fish landed a few hundred metres away (including the gurnard which lends its tail to their logo) are cooked in a pleasingly unfussy way, all at “reasonable prices”.

“Consistently good fish at fair prices” wins very high popularity in our annual diners’ poll for this “somewhat cavernous” venue (with a cookery school upstairs) from chef Paul Webbe, who has championed Sussex produce for more than 25 years; “loved the amazing six-course menu during the Scallop Festival week”.

2024 Review: The “historic location” (a 600-year-old building with mullioned windows and many a beam) certainly adds to the charms of this old smugglers’ inn – “a little old-school, but that’s all part of the experience”. It’s been under the same owners for three decades, and while it’s not the main draw, the “lovely food” also has its fans.

This increasingly fashionable adults-only wellness retreat in a converted 1960s motel behind Camber Sands serves ambitious and “interesting” menus from MasterChef contestant Nico Fitzgerald, accompanied by what is said to be the biggest selection of English wines in the country.

“A beautifully considered menu, cooked to perfection in idyllic surroundings” delights all comers to chef-patron Will Devlin’s attractive spot in the ‘Garden of England’, where many of the ingredients are grown on their own farm. “We were given an interesting pre-lunch tour of the garden, and the chef serving the tables was unusually informative”. You can choose between ‘Full Acre’ seven-course (£95 per person) or ‘Half Acre’ five-course tasting menus (£75 per person), with a three-course option at lunch (£55 per person). Wines are all organic or biodynamic, and include a “very good paired English wine flight”.

“Paul Webbe’s original restaurant is still a pleasure to visit” almost three decades after opening, the farmhouse venue having since spawned a clutch of fish-centric spin-offs alongside a cookery school in Hastings. “Reliably old-fashioned (in the best possible way)”, it combines “superb service and some first-rate cooking” which, as per the name, is focussed on foraging, including “a marvellous set luncheon with a very large choice for each course at a reasonable price in this day and age”. For several reporters this is a place to “go back to on special occasions as the quality is very good”.

“A country pub with an above-average menu” and "consistently good food” from chef-patron Lee Adams that’s generally agreed to be “a cut above the others in the area”. (The unusual name references First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon, who lived in the village.)

Set in a converted stable block that was once part of the neighbouring coaching inn – now their sister venue, ‘The Oak on the Green’ – a “lovely village restaurant with real talent in the kitchen”. As per the name, it’s all about the “very good quality fresh fish” which fans proclaim “a bargain” (particularly the “excellent value lunch”).

“Home-grown seasonal produce” means meals “as fresh as food can get” at this daytime café-restaurant (plus dinner on Friday & Saturday) at a long-term project, the restoration of a Victorian walled garden in the High Weald using organic no-dig methods. It makes a “super setting” for lunch or a “slice of lovely cake”.

A “brilliant family-run pub (father and daughter duo, Dale Skinner and Harriet Bull, are at the helm) with excellent food and a lovely garden with views of Bodiam Castle”, plus comfortable rooms if you wish to stay. A former CAMRA ‘Country Pub of the Year’, its wide-ranging menu of classic boozer fare is always “excellent and the service exemplary” (“for a pub I cannot rate it too highly – open fire, good range of beer and a varied, seasonal menu”).

“Tasty modern food” is “served with enthusiasm at a reasonable price” at former art student Rose Furnival’s smart little venue, which she has developed over eight years from a tea room to a full-blown restaurant-with-rooms. A contestant in MasterChef: The Professionals in 2023, she still serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, while dinner is a sharing small-plates affair.

2023 Review: “The most intensely tasty, well executed and imaginative street food outside of Shoreditch”, say fans of this new permanent home for a popular food truck familiar to visitors to Camber Sands: “great service and reasonable prices complete one of the best places for proper eats in this gorgeous little gem of a town”. Top Menu Tip – “the chilli brisket or buttermilk chicken burger with maple bacon and satay mayo will transport you into raptures to say nothing of the spicy chips with scotch bonnet jam that always remain crispy no matter the additions piled on!”.

“Top-quality small plates” based around seasonal ingredients from local suppliers are to be found in this quaint 15th-century former pub that “seems to improve with each visit” – it’s hidden away down a cobbled lane off the main drag in this attractive seaside town.

Named after the coppiced woodland upon which it sits – Flimwell Park, an über-modern 46-acre sustainable community – this three-year-old is the third venture for Will Devlin, whose nearby The Small Holding holds a Michelin Green Star. “The standard bearer for excellent, locally sourced food” – small and large plates served in the “well-designed but canteen-style” interior or (preferably) on the stunning terrace overlooking the forest – it’s “pretty unbeatable for a fixed-price lunch”, though they’re also now open until 20.00 on Friday and Saturday night.