Telephone: 01227 273 311
Address: 8 High Street, Whitstable, Kent
Meal for two, excluding wine, £50.
The good news just keeps on coming. In the first week of October the Aberdeen Angus Steak House chain, a London restaurant group with all the mass appeal of herpes but none of the laughs, called in the receivers. It wasn't just our imagination - there really was no one eating in them, save the occasional confused Danish tourist. Now come reports that the greasy spoon, for so long the cholesterol-drenched, functionally impaired heart of the British eating experience, is in terminal decline. Consultant cardiologists may mourn, but the rest of us can celebrate hard evidence of an outbreak of good taste in Britain.
Another sign of a healthy restaurant sector is the hidden gem. Those great places that everyone knows about are fine, but only when some start to pass us by can we really begin to get all sweaty and excited about the state of British dining. They do not come more hidden or gem-like than the dining room of the Wheelers Oyster Bar in Whitstable. Granted, the building itself is not easily missed. This Wheelers, established in the mid-19th century by Richard 'Leggy' Wheeler and the first of what eventually became a chain, is a queasy shade of salmon pink.
But once inside you would have to know to pull back the curtain that masks the doorway beside the cold seafood counter - heavy with prawns and oysters and smoked eel - to find the dining room. Even then you would not give it a second glance. It looks like someone's back parlour, complete with ragged nick-nacks. There are only four tables with space, at most, for 12 people. But, oh - the things those 12 people can eat...
The chef, Mark Stubbs, trained with the likes of Mark Sargeant, Gordon Ramsay's man at Claridge's, who was recently named chef of the year. Clearly though, Stubbs is not interested in that kind of high-class clatter and shine. This is a simple joint. So simple that it does not have a licence. You are invited to bring your own wine, for which they charge no corkage. (There's a branch of Thresher's across the road, should you forget.) It means you can afford a far better bottle than you might otherwise enjoy. My companion Steve Harris, the chef of the marvellous Sportsman pub at nearby Seasalter, who first told me about this place, brought with him a bottle of Louis Latour Meursault, which would have set us back the best part of a pony had it appeared on anyone's list.
The food you will be matching your wine to is - as it should be here - entirely fish-based, mostly local and leaning towards the rich. Despite the small number of seats, nobody in the kitchen seemed to be in a rush and it may be worth ordering a pint of shell-on prawns to give you something to play with, but really, it's well worth the wait.
A tart of lightly curried leeks and potato, overlaid with thick flakes of local smoked haddock with warm mustardy lentils, was a stratified affair, each prime ingredient holding its own. My starter of king prawns with baked figs that had been wrapped in Parma ham and stuffed with gorgonzola and taleggio may sound overly complicated, but it wasn't really. The figs worked as one item, creating a single burst of soft, caramelised fruity flavour.
For his main course, Steve had two great slabs of flaky roasted cod on a bed of wilted spinach leaves, surrounded by a lake of French onion soup. It too, sounded a little odd, but it worked; the dense oniony soup pointing up the richness of the fish. I had crisply seared fillets of snapper - not a local fish, but fresh all the same - on a vast portion of a lush saffron, chive and king prawn risotto. Puddings, of which there were only two, are not the strong point. We tried the crème brûlée, which was less than expert, but that's not the point here. The fish is the thing.
Pricing may look hefty - starters are around £8, mains £13 - but remember you're not paying mark-up on the wine. What's more, you have the warm glow of knowing that you have stumbled upon a truly delicious secret.
