Our grandmother, who lived in Cliftonville, would take us to the Smuggler's, and it was always a…read moretreat. I think it's worth the trip if you want a nice English meal with no frills. The service was excellent.

Expensive but nice restaurant in the middle of Birchington. This restaurant is at the top end of…read morethe price range in thanet but well worth it, good food, great service and a really lovely atmosphere, quiet with some excellent tables, including some hidden away in little nooks and cranies. Not the biggest place, but that just makes it nicer.

There are a surprising amount of restaurants in the seaside town of Broadstairs, but when doing our…read morerecce of the town on arrival, this one stood out as the place we wanted to eat. We popped in and booked our table immediately. I can imagine that this town is rammed in the summer, but in early March it's pretty quiet. I'm still glad we booked though as the restaurant was fairly busy. The menu changes every day and focuses on British dishes with locally sourced ingredients. Being right next to the shore, this meant fish all the way for me. We started with some homemade bread and both me and the other half went for scallops for starter - served with crisp pancetta and a chickpea puree. The dish was very tasty though a touch on the small side. For main course, I went for wild sea bass served with brown shrimp, spinach and pickled veg. The fish was fresh and cooked to perfection, the whole dish a great combination of flavours. The boyf went for duck which was also delicious. For dessert we ordered the almond and pear tart and a chocolate pudding with choc chip ice cream. Both were divine but I preferred the tart. The wine list was interesting and not excessive in price. We ordered a bottle of Tempranillo, and finished with a couple of glasses of port. The manager popped over to see if we were happy with our meals. Chatting with him, we found out that the restaurant had been open less than three weeks. Give or take a couple of minor service errors, the place was running extremely well for somewhere open so short a time. He had previously lived in Brighton and admitted that he had got some of his ideas for the restaurant from there - perhaps that's why it had such an affinity with us! As well as baking their own bread, they also butcher their own meat and smoke their own fish on the premises. Breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner are all served here. This was a real find for us, and for a business in their infancy, they are producing fine food and service. I wish them the best of luck for the future and would definitely return if we are ever in the area again.

Lovely little eatery by the seafront in Broadstairs. this place is good for traditional British…read morefood, Kentish ales and service with a beard. We kicked things off with some home-made bread and I had a bottle of Green Daemon Helles. One of the breads was chocolate which came as an unexpectedly tasty surprise! For main the lady had sea bass which she said was fantastic, and I had the root vegetable Pan Haggerty - something completely new to me and rather delicious. The chips were SERIOUS chips with masses of crunch and plenty of heft. It is quite expensive in the grand scheme of things, with our lunch bill for 2 coming to over £50 including service - this is not London, lest we forget. Definitely worth checking out if/when in Broadstairs, with a great selection of food and booze on the menu.

This place was so nice, I can not even remmeber how many drinks I had....You should visit!!read more

The lifeboat is a pub in Margate Old Town, near the "Main Sands" area. It is affiliated with…read moreBrewdog and offers a fairly comprehensive selection of their real ales, all on tap and in great condition. Prices however are steep(!), and for beers above 6% ABV you can't even get a full pint - instead you can order a 2/3 pint, but the price is higher than for a "regular" full pint elsewhere. It's true though that Brewdog ales aren't cheap anywhere. Definitely not a place to binge. ;) There is a small outside seating area, but the benches are so creaky I had to change my position twice because I was afraid that I would break them.

Margate can be bewildering for the first-time visitor arriving by train. The blurb on Margate all…read moretrades off its past as the premier sea resort of Kent (apparently it was the first 'bathing beach' in England, launched in 1736). The picture on Margate's Wikipedia entry, with its old clock tower in the foreground and sandy beach in the background is vaguely evocative of the Dunkirk beaches from the film Atonement. The sight that greets rail arrivals brutally exposes the camera's lie. A grey, imposing tower block is the first thing that catches your eye. Then, a little further back, the jaw-droppingly old, recently reopened, theme park rather disbelievably called 'Dreamland', housed in sixties red brick. When one reaches the beach, one is bluntly told "Do not bathe here" while the tackiness of the shops on the sea front itself suggest that Margate has fallen a long way from its past glories. One might conclude that the Margate experience is awash with encroaching tat and tack. Head for the Lifeboat! No, really, head for the Lifeboat. The first reason to head to the Lifeboat is that it's located in Margate's Old Town. Rather like in Hastings, Margate's Old Town is filled with interesting old buildings (including a Tudor house.. right next to a demolished building. Only in Margate) and classier restaurants, cafes, shops and pubs. In short, enough to discover the cooler and classier side to Margate. The second reason is the atmosphere of the Lifeboat itself. Unlike the seafront bars, there's no Carling or Sky Sports here, just an excellent range of local, dirt-cheap (3 pounds a pint!) ale and cider. Sure, there's Meantime too, but it's noticeably more expensive and let's be honest, inferior. The interior is wooden, with sawdust on the floor. The service is friendly and one might say earthy. And, best of all, they were playing Bohemian Rhapsody for most of my time there. Class. I'm not a fan of painful punnery, but it's no exaggeration to say that the Lifeboat saved my Margate experience.

We stopped in for Sunday Roast following Sunday service at the Cathedral. The place was full, so…read moremaking a reservation is suggested. The food was excellent! I had the beef roast, while my daughter had fish and chips. The service was good and the staff were very friendly. We struck up a conversation with the people at a neighboring table; even the other patrons are friendly.

Lovely restaurant, one of my favourites in the area and have visited it many times! All of the…read morestaff are really friendly, and on one occasion the chef came out of the kitchen to talk to people and make sure that they were enjoying the food! The lamb for two people is really delicious, but my favourite dish is the flat iron steak, which comes with triple cooked chips, homemade tomato ketchup and mushroom ketchup. The mushroom ketchup is insanely good, and it's really nice with the steak! The prices are not cheap, but it's definitely worth it as the food is superb.

Went there for dinner--we are two vegetarians--and we ate so well. Their veg options are…read morethoughtfully marked on the menu, and we had cheese in three different forms, each one more delicious than the last. The space is cute, the service was attentive, and they have nice wines, too, including a very tasty orange wine. Loved it! We'll be back.

Cold food, cold service, cold restaurant. What food that was edible and not sent back wasn't nice…read more It was as if they just bought it all frozen from Brake Brothers and dished it out as finer dining. You're better off going to the chippy and sitting on the beach. It will be better food, warm, cheaper and it will be warmer on the beach! Ph not forgetting the 12.5% service charge!! Not the place it used to be. They've really taken their eye off the ball here.

The attention to detail in the decor, service and cuisine are notable. Each dish arrived looking…read morelike a work of art and tasting like the Chef is striving toward a Michelin star. The halibut with cockles, kale and fluffy cauliflower puree had exquisite flavor and balance. The skin on the halibut was perfectly crisp in contrast to the flakiness of the halibut. The wine list has been carefully chosen, too! We're planning to return in the summer with our family.

Lovely food and a really great place! I have been back a fair few times since first tasting their…read morefood, and it's always been delicious. Would definitely recommend this place.

If I lived in Margate, this would be my spot. Excellent place to chill out w/ the caffeine based…read moredrink of your choice and talk about the latest exhibit at the Turner Contemporary while listening to jazz playing quietly in the background. The space is lit to enhance the warm and cozy environment. The name is what drew me in. Proper Coffee. It's what I needed and what I got. Had an excellent flat white that was perfectly made with coffee that was an excellent balance of fruitiness and bitterness, requiring no sugar. My wife assures me her mocha had just the right amount of chocolate to balance the full bodied flavor of the coffee and the milk was beautifully frothed. And of course, the scones were fresh and tasty, tender and crumbly just as scones should be. This is a proper coffee house.

Hands down the best coffee I had in the UK. Otherwise a cute, standard setup - quiet, cosy, some…read morenice baked goods, pleasant atmosphere. But, man, the coffee!!