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Tom Parker Bowles & Olly Smith: Eating out

Published: 00:02 BST, 25 July 2021 | Updated: 00:02 BST, 25 July 2021

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An old-fashioned Kent boozer serving up stunningly modern food? Tom is in heaven…

Lobster with 小島 of Wight tomatoes is ‘immaculately cooked’

There’s much to love about The 橋（渡しをする）武器, a place that mixes old-fashioned boozer with resolutely modern restaurant. So while the pub is all 古代の beams, parquet 床に打ち倒すs and でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れるd photos of days long past, the dining room ? high-天井d and flooded with light ? is daubed in 控えめの Dijon yellow. Staff are young, 有望な and brimming with delight, while the menu is every bit as thrilling as a new Jack Reacher.

All this doesn’t come as a 完全にする surprise. It’s the second 開始 from Daniel and Natasha Smith, the team behind The Fordwich 武器 a few miles 負かす／撃墜する the road. While my friend Zeren gets stuck into a ワイン名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる） filled with decently 定価つきの lovelies, I dive 深い into the menu that’s the very essence of midsummer England. There are 取調べ／厳しく尋問するd potato flatbreads with blobs of fresh ricotta, clean and lactic, 加える soft, gentle confit ga rlic with a scattering of 造幣局 and flowers. Lobster, immaculately cooked, comes with a subtly curried 貝類と甲殻類 sauce, surrounded by curls of courgettes and carefully dressed 小島 of Wight tomatoes.

Then, more tomatoes, this time hugging a 冷静な／正味の, creamy ball of burrata, mixed with tart peach, shaved and cubed, and a few fronds of dill. There’s a wonderful 酸性 to the dish, the sort of understated precision that wears its art lightly. Just like crab tart, where the flakiest of pastry struggles to 含む／封じ込める a brown-meat hollandaise with 正確に／まさに the 権利量 of grunt. A spoonful of caviar 追加するs depth, cubes of apple and cucumber lithe bite. A scallop is almost Japanese in its 潔白; a little lemon and garlic, and lots of butter, yet never rich or 激しい. As with everything, there’s an innate culinary 知能, and elegant technique too. And that’s just the starters.

We 株 a Josper-cooked, monolithic monkfish tail, a piece of fish so pearlescent, luscious and succulently beautiful that the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する turns 一時的に silent. Dipped into Bearnaise sauce, it’s every bit as mightily meaty as the rack of Blackface lamb, and a lozenge of slow-cooked breast, that we move on to next. Both bleat with ovine vigour.

Oh, then a roast 脚 of suckling pig, with gleaming crisp 肌 and tenderly seductive flesh, that we order, 井戸／弁護士席, just because it’s there, and we adore this place, and it’s past three on a hot summer’s afternoon. And やめる率直に, it would be rather rude not to.

About ￡45 a 長，率いる. The 橋（渡しをする）武器, 53 High Street, 橋（渡しをする）, Canterbury; bridgearms.co.uk

Drinks: Olly’s hidden red gems

いつかs hidden gems are 現実に hiding in plain sight. For example, I’d never heard ‘My Little Town’ sung by Simon and Garfunkel until this year. ワイン’s the same ? Criolla is a grape in Argentina that’s 広範囲にわたって工場／植物d and yet little known, 有能な of producing light reds to make your summer sing, Shiraz in Chile isn’t as famous as it should be and New Zealand Pinot Noir is some of the best in the world…?

WINE OF THE WEEK Flint Vineyard Pinot Noir Precoce 2020 (12%), ￡23.99, flintvineyard.com. The best English red I’ve tasted this year. Light, ethereal and magical.

Buenas Vides Argentinian Criolla (13.5%), ￡5.99, Aldi. A light red that is lovely when lightly 冷気／寒がらせるd ? and gives 最高の，を越す value, too.

Finest Valle deL Limari Shiraz 2019 (14%), ￡8, Tesco. Blackcurrant pastilles! Gorgeous, silky, fruity and rich. Move over, Malbec.

Esprit des Trois Pierres Costieres de Nimes 2020 (14.5%), ￡8.99, Waitrose. Lavender and spice, this fragrant red blend is one to decant and delight in.

Dog Point Marlborough Pinot Noir 2018 (13%), ￡25, thewine society.com. World-（警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing Pinot ? 罰金ワイン that’s 全く価値（がある） splashing out on. Incredible 質.