It shouldn't really come as surprise that Whitstable has its first Michelin-starred restaurant. It is well over a decade since the old harbour town on the north Kent coast began to find favour with the London middle class and their gentrifying ways. And one consequence of its hectic transformation has been a sharp rise in the quality – and price – of its cuisine. After all, if there's one thing a hard-working professional from the capital demands – and, let's be honest, deserves – on his or her relaxing weekend by the sea it is decent food.
So there's Wheelers on the high street and the Oyster Fishery Company and the Crab and Winkle on the harbour. But the Michelin man's tongue was tingled by none of these. Because the best restaurant in Whitstable isn't in Whitstable at all. It's in Seasalter, a mile or so along the coast.
Approaching Whitstable from the Thanet Way you glide down Borstal Hill towards the sea, but just as the road is about to deliver you to the spanking new art galleries and organic greengrocers of the town centre, the sign for Seasalter takes you down Joy Lane (someone had a lot of fun with those road names) and towards something quite different. You're going to visit Whitstable's rowdy neighbour.
The route is defined by pubs (or is that just me?). Beyond the Rose in Bloom and a row of newly built luxury sea-view homes (£1.1m a pop if you're interested), the modern world ends and Seasalter begins at the Jolly Sailor or, if you prefer, a few hundred yards further away at the Blue Anchor, where smugglers used to divvy up their duty-frees at the Anchor many years ago.
These days Whitstable's fattened estate agents would get short shrift beyond this point – not least because there aren't any houses to sell. There are a few ramshackle bungalows, but otherwise it's half a mile or so of caravans and chalet parks. These are the Seasalter marshes, where Dickens imagined Magwitch threatening to cut out Pip's liver unless he fetched him food (others place the confrontation in Romney or Cliffe, but the Swale estuary is known to have been a favoured spot for prison ships, so Seasalter's claims are solid), and where some say Daniel Defoe was inspired to write Robinson Crusoe. You get the idea.
Faversham Road is the only manmade route across the marsh. And it goes on and on, steep grass banks and sea walls keeping back the water on one side, flat infinity on the other. Wim Wenders would like it here.
Finally, you see a white building in the distance. The Sportsman is the last pub in Seasalter, and it was given a Michelin star the other week. Sheep graze here and there, awaiting the call from the chef, Steve Harris, a subversive in the saltmarshes who dislikes the fussiness of poncy restaurants and wants to cook for the people.
Thirty years ago Steve and I were members of punk bands round these parts. We used to enter Battle of the Bands contests in Canterbury and would finish seventh or eighth behind the local Carpenters tribute act and various prog-rockers. It didn't help that the judging panel was usually chaired by the owner of the local country club, who would insist that there was a right way and a wrong way to make music. I don't think Steve was listening.
Go to his restaurant and eat his amazing food. During the week there's a tasting menu that includes "pork scratchings with home-churned butter and Seasalter salt", braised brill with smoked herring roe sauce, and jasmine tea junket with rosehip syrup. The latter is very good, but I would walk barefoot across the marsh in a monsoon, Magwitch or no Magwitch, to eat the rhubarb sorbet with burnt cream. After that, zip up your jacket and set forth across the Swale Nature Reserve – all the way to Faversham Creek if you can hack it. It's not to everyone's taste, but then it isn't Whitstable.
