King Street, Fordwich, Kent CT2 0DB
The Fordwich Arms, located in what one seems obliged to note is Britain’s smallest town, is a Michelin-starred “pub and restaurant”. At least that’s what they say, but I’m not convinced that it really operates as a pub anymore. Certainly, on my Saturday lunchtime visit, all the tables in the attractive and spacious “bar” area were taken up by diners, and there was no real evidence of punters wandering in for a pint and some peanuts. Indeed, not all the locals seem to have embraced this new iteration of The Fordwich Arms which opened at the turn of 2018 – more on that later – so perhaps they now drink elsewhere.
However, even if one views The Fordwich Arms as a restaurant only, it is an exceedingly good one. In addition to that front “bar” area, it has a more formal “restaurant” at the back. This wood-panelled room seemed a little gloomier, and more hushed to me, so I was happy to be sat out front, particularly since the room was at its best in the spring sunshine. The food is exceptional, and worthy of its Michelin star. An appealing menu, full of crowd-pleasing and contemporary dishes is split into “Snacks”, “Starters” and “Mains”, and there is a welcome absence of the obligatory multi-course structure that garlanded restaurants of this type often require; if you just want a dish or two, that seems fine…although you’d be mad not to try as much as your stomach or self-respect can accommodate, because there’s a lot of deliciousness coming out of that kitchen. A word of warning, though: The Fordwich Arms is all in on that most “starry” of tropes – the amuse bouche, to the point where we were offered not one, not two but three such unadvertised bites, each presented with its own theatrical flourish. Black pudding beignets came in a box scented with pine needles, some warmed cured smoked trout was dragged over a block of Himalayan salt before being plated with a horseradish tartlet, and a rich mouthful of cod’s roe was sandwiched between two delicate crisps, dusted with seaweed powder. As is often the case, the theatrical element didn’t really add much to the taste of each dish, but these were nonetheless enjoyed, and fulfilled the brief of getting us excited about what was to follow. We had just the five proper starters/snacks between the two of us – some bread, pickled veg, a couple of oysters, duck liver parfait with doughnuts, and langoustine, asparagus and lardo. None of those dishes was particularly complex, but each exhibited details – pork fat “butter”, whipped with Marmite and maple, warm, springy doughnuts, a thin, almost see-through sheet of lardo, barely covering the modesty of the langoustine beneath it – that marked out the skill and understanding going on in the kitchen. More than anything, these are dishes that you just want to eat, greedily, and we did.
The dish of roast suckling pig, cevenne onion, golden raisin, smoked sausage and sauce gribiche read so well on the page of the menu that we both ordered it, and it didn’t disappoint. Four different cuts of pork, each precisely cooked, with fat perfectly rendered and skin expertly crisped, were accompanied by a thin block of compressed fried potatoes – one of last year’s London culinary trends taking flight into the countryside. Desserts – a rice pudding and a white chocolate mousse – were again, precisely cooked and plated, although perhaps tipping into the fussier end of presentation.
The youthful front of house team, led by joint owner Guy Palmer-Brown, are courteous and well-drilled, but I particularly enjoyed the service from the younger members of the team, who seemed a little more relaxed than their seniors, as if not yet burdened with the belief that working in a Michelin-starred establishment requires a certain level of formality.
All in all, then, a cracking culinary experience, reasonably priced in comparison with the equivalent quality in London. So why have some of the locals got the hump? Surely, a restaurant of this excellence would be a source of pride and joy to any community, particularly one that is not well served by high-end restaurants (with the notable exception of the nearby Sportsman, the next closest Michelin-starred restaurant, as the crow flies, is in Boulogne, France). However, when The Fordwich Arms first opened, some locals bemoaned the loss of a handsome pub to fancy food and metropolitan pricing; writing at the time of opening, one TripAdvisor reviewer (I know, I know…) complained that the changes made to The Fordwich Arms had turned it from “homely to hipster”, and lamented the loss of “a community-based pub”. But the George & Dragon, barely 50 yards away from The Fordwich Arms, looks like a perfectly nice place to drink, so there must be more to any criticism.
The Fordwich Arms’ culinary credentials and ambitions have drawn visits from many of the national restaurant reviewers (Flett, Dent, Parker Bowles, O’Loughlin – I see you), and their largely positive reviews have seen foodies from London (which is just an hour by high speed train, and then a ten minute cab ride, away) and, no doubt, further afield, follow behind. And perhaps that’s the issue: the fear that the Arms will draw these big city types down to this corner of Kent, and before you know it, the price of a pint of beer will go up, followed by the price of the local produce on sale in the wonderful Goods Shed next to Canterbury West station. And then these day-trippers will be seduced by the area’s transport links, Margate’s renaissance, Broadstairs’ beaches, and north Kent’s two Michelin star restaurants, so they’ll buy a second home in the area, and property prices will shoot up, and the locals that have lived here for years will be priced out. And these modern-day invaders won’t even really live in these second homes, which will sit empty for most of the year, or even worse, attract a stream of even more transient Air BnBers, who’ll destroy the sense of community still further.
But it seems a bit unfair to me to pile all that prognostication on to The Fordwich Arms. And, as yet, there are only four Air BnBs within a 10-mile radius of Fordwich, suggesting that the metropolitan march has yet to begin in earnest. So, for now at least, you can enjoy The Fordwich Arms guilt-free, and you absolutely should.
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