BITE CLUB: Ft. Cheeky Clucker, Unità 4, Flotsam & Jetsam and The Small Holding
Cripes, we missed dining out over the past year, so we took great pleasure in picking out four essential eateries to visit this summer, each with its own story, personality and price point… because we can’t all eat out all the time… or can we?
CHEEKY CLUCKER, ROCHESTER
If you have taken a stroll down Rochester High Street in the last few months, it’s almost a guarantee that you would have noticed Cheek Clucker. Its neon signs, stylish and welcoming entrance and Balearic house music drifting across the airwaves.
Opening as a takeaway-only at the heart of lockdown, Cheeky Clucker has already built a huge following online and now with its full restaurant up and running we can only expect more good things.
Visitors will notice works almost finished on the underground venue below the restaurant that is going to offer cocktails (try the lemon meringue pie with vanilla vodka, limoncello and white cacao) and exclusive DJ sets from internationally-known artists.
We know this because co-owner Scott Rozario has roots in the music industry and his friendship with rapper Professor Green resulted in a guest appearance at the family’s Vaperizzo shop round the corner in Victoria Street.
But, musical ties aside, this place is banging out some wicked wings. On our visit we tried the sweet-spicy honey sriracha (buttermilk-fried chicken wings in a signature honey sriracha sauce, topped with a sriracha mayo drizzle, toasted sesame, spring onion and mixed pepper curls), the mouth-melting Firecracker (wings tossed in signature Firecracker sauce, topped with toasted sesame, spring onion, red chilli and a cheeky wedge of lime), buffalo fries slathered in buffalo sauce with a blue cheese drizzle, topped with chives and crumbled Stilton and the tongue-tingling vegan and gluten-free buffalo cauli poppers – cauliflower pickled in buffalo sauce, fried in a secret blend of herbs and spices (watch out, Colonel!). Pow!
UNITÀ 4, ASHFORD
A new edition to Elwick Place, Unità 4 is focused on bringing quality, original flavours and ingredients from Italy to Ashford.
With al-fresco dining at the front and a stylish industrial-look interior with exposed, shining metal and booming atmosphere, it makes it a great spot for brunch, dinner and even cocktail evenings where guests can book space at the bar to eat and drink – look out for the classic Espresso Martini, the Prosecco Fiabesco Doc or even the Ichnusa, a pale lager all the way from Sardinia.
An open kitchen allows those with a foodie mind to watch as the chefs create authentic pizzas, while the theatre-style pasta kitchen will have faces pressed up against the glass no doubt as the experts create the dishes from scratch.
In fact, the Unità 4 pasta-making experiences are a must where enthusiasts will be shown how to make pasta dough by hand and taught regional pasta dishes and variations such as lasagne and tagliatelle (Emilia-Romagna), gnocchetti (Sardinia) and orecchiette (Puglia).
The menu is not your typical British Italian (thankfully) and on our visit we took on the strozzapreti (elongated shell rolls) served with a sausage ragout, oyster mushrooms, pecorino romano and thyme – wowser, the flavour!
As an alternative we tried out the vegan 4 Stagioni pizza, using vegan cheese, artichokes, olives, mushrooms and sliced courgette. If you have room, take a glance at the deep-fried mini rice arancini balls with mozzarella and tomato. Open from 11am-11pm every day – be sure to look out for pre-cinema deals and Aperitivo 2-for-1 cocktails hours. Bellissimo!
FLOTSAM & JETSAM, BROADSTAIRS
Set in arguably the best-positioned restaurant in Kent – Wyatt and Jones – Flotsam & Jetsam started life during the pandemic as a window hatch, though a beautifully crafted one, off the main restaurant.
But with the quality foods on offer, it was quickly apparent this was not your run-of-the-mill fish & chips vendor. In fact, we wouldn’t even call it a takeaway (though it is); it’s melt-in-your-mouth mastery of seafood and frites flair!
Yards from the sandy Broadstairs beach, F&J became a social-media sensation for its signature Fritto Misto, packed with frites and skewered battered seafoods. Who knew something this good could come from a paper cone? Choose from mussel and cockle popcorn, monkfish scampi, half lobster, halibut corndog, battered rollmops, hake kiev, carabineros prawns and crispy crab dumplings.
If you’re hungry, take note of the sides like deep-fried cauliflower cheese and padron poppers and be sure to smother it in one of the sauces, like the lobster mayo or seaweed ketchup.
Now open seven days a week due to popular demand, F&J is a mainstay for the whole year, meaning it’s not just for the daytrippers. The fish & chips game just changed. Revolutionary.
THE SMALL HOLDING, KILNDOWN
Heralded by food guides, newspapers and social-media scran buffs from across the land, The Small Holding and its chef/owner Will Devlin have taken micro-geoponics on to the macro stage.
The beautiful kitchen and farm on the Kent-East Sussex border has certainly played its part in shifting the thought process of what can be achieved on the plate from one acre of land.
There is a unique connection between the field and fork here, with daily-changing menus, using ingredients home-reared and home-grown less than 10ft from the kitchen.
Taking over a run-down former pub, the Small Holding team have transformed it into an open kitchen and bar with a large decked terrace and 38-cover restaurant.
They have been growing, foraging and cooking the best ingredients, including 200 varieties of vegetables and fruits such as Broccoli ‘Red Blaze’, Cauliflower ‘Graffiti’, Cucumber ‘Passandra’, Radish ‘Viola’, Runner Beans ‘Scarlet Emperor’ and Courgette ‘Midnight’, while rare-breed Berkshire pigs, chickens and ducks roam the farm.
The menu is defined by hyper-seasonal ingredients with a focus on the farm’s own produce (except fish and seafood, which comes from the South Coast or Scotland) but undefined by the number of courses or choice.
There is no formal menu; instead, guests are offered a multi-taste dining experience featuring the best ingredients on that day.
We can’t tell you what will be on the menu the day you inevitably visit… but it will often fall into themes such as The Farm with raw peas, elderflower and radishes; The Glut with kohlrabi, green apple and yarrow; Preserves of fermented roots and smoked bacon broth; Cured with homemade fennel salami and sourdough; Fish with oyster, chive and pickle, crab, chamomile and fennel, lobster and tomato; and Sweet with gooseberry, honey and cream, carrot, cream cheese and hogweed, strawberry, meadowsweet and basil. Considered.
BRAMLEY HOUSE B&B, KILNDOWN
f you are heading to The Small Holding for an evening and want to enjoy the wine flight (it would be rude not to, right?), it’s worth booking up accommodation nearby. And it doesn’t get much better, or closer, than Bramley House Bed & Breakfast.
While the large inglenook, farmhouse-style kitchen and rustic, comfortable bedrooms don’t already swing it for you, it’s devotion to the ‘good food’ feel of Kilndown will surely float the boat or foodie tourists.
Breakfast is loaded with sausages and bacon from Silcocks Farm in Tenterden, potatoes, eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes from the nearby Eggs To Apples Farm Shop at Hurst Green and, if you go Continental, the granola is from Buy The Weigh zero-waste store in Ticehurst. Full.