Places To Eat In Canterbury: The Dove, Dargate

Especially during the summer, nothing beats a good, out of the way food pub with a lovely garden to sit and eat with friends (and work your way through a bottle of rose!) and if you’re looking for a new one to try can I recommend The Dove at Dargate where we had lunch a couple of weeks ago, conveniently positioned pretty much equidistant from Canterbury, Faversham and Whitstable.

Sitting at a table in their back garden (lovely sun trap, though you feel it on days when it is a bit breezy!) we started off with a good bread course: tapenade-filled spirals with good butter, crowned with flaky sea salt.

Moving onto our starters, I was mighty tempted by the burrata crowned with chimichurri sauce, served with grilled apricots and toasted hazelnuts. It was a lovely, unusual concept of a dish: the idea of a herby sauce goes well with the creamy, excellent quality burrata, though I feel the garlicky punch of the chimichurri was a bit much and pesto would have been better? Regardless, this was my only issue with it (except for the apricots could have also been riper, but stone fruits can be finicky!) and the toasted hazelnuts were an excellent touch. Both a fashionable dish, and also a unique one.

Apparently the tomato salad with pickled shallots was rather good, but the real star of the first course was the crab scotch quails eggs served with samphire and a chive emulsion. I’m sorry I did not manage to get a good picture of the middle of one of these because they were exquisitely done, with a perfect soft yolk, rich, yet light crab coating and a lovely crisp exterior. A real gem of a dish you must order. I ordered wrong. The burrata was great… but these were even better!

But, my crispy seafood ball dreams were fulfilled by the ricotta and lobster arancini served with a lobster and prawn sauce. Okay, so the veg was a bit too abundant proportionate to the size of the arancini, and the rice balls themselves could have done with a touch more salt but they had a wonderful flavour perfect for seafood-lovers as well as fat, generous chunks of lobster dotted throughout. A wonderful, slightly unusual main which showed both excellent skill and creativity.

The only one of us who did not opt for the arancini had the braised short rib of beef with parmesan potato puree and swiss chard. A good flavour apparently, but the short rib was not quite fall-off-the-bone.

The glass of rose we had was excellent and there were non alcoholic beer options if you asked for them (but not listed on the menu) and a cocktail list, but it’s also worth noting not many other alcohol free options if you’re driving listed on the menu past the usual pub sodas and tonic waters.

We moved inside for pudding as the wind was picking up a bit. The choux bun filled with pistachio white chocolate cremeux with cherries was an instant must-order from the menu, but it turned out to be a bit of a let down: the individual elements of a good choux with craquelin, the indulgent and beautifully flavoured cremeux and the slightly almond macerated cherries were all perfect, but they did not quite work together as a dish, surprising as they’re all flavours you’d usually find in partnership.

The iced coffee parfait with milk chocolate crumb, raspberries and honeycomb however was apparently on point.

I know if feels like I’ve knit picked a little in this review, but they’re really just a few notes around the edges: aside from these things and the very slow (but very friendly!) service which can be chalked up to how hard it must be to get staff midweek in the middle of the countryside (and it was still nowhere as slow as the service has become at Boys Hall who don’t have the same challenges!), we had a lovely lunch at The Dove and would not hesitate to go back, which is why I’m recommending it to you. Pick a weekend when you want a leisurely lunch, and book a table!

• Pin
• Tweet
• Share