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Being in Folkestone I really wanted to visit Mark Sargeant’s new restaurant Rocksalt but unfortunately I had a ferry to catch and didn’t have the time.
Instead I had to settle for his fish & chip shop ‘The Smokehouse’.
Although to be fair I was quite excited as i’m a big fan of fish & chips, especially good ones. I assumed that fish & chips by the chef who won a Michelin star for Gordon Ramsay at Claridges would be no ordinary fish & chips!
I was right, they were very good. We ordered battered ‘Mussel Bites’ and ‘Deep Fried Scallops’ (the shellfish, not the fried potato things we have up North!) and good old fish & chips. There was a much wider selection of fish than the usual chippy choices and the batter was fantastic. The chips were also incredible, cooking in beef dripping so i’d hate to think of their calorie content but they tasted good. The mushy peas were pretty good too.
There were a few problems. Firstly they had no tartre sauce or bread which isn’t ideal for a fish and chip shop but I suppose these things happen and I was just unlucky. The other problem was the difficulty in eating out of the small boxes that the food is served in. Think New York style noodle boxes, only it’s a lot more difficult to eat fish & chips with a fork out of a small box than noodles with chop sticks!
Other than that it was a good experience and far better than your average chippy yet the prices were only slightly higher than i’m used to paying for much lower quality food.
Date of visit: 04.09.2011
