ARYA, RAMSGATE

To get to Ramsgate’s new small-plates restaurant, Arya, you have to go through The Ravensgate Arms – not exactly a hardship. Head up the stairs behind an unmarked door. At the top, a window into the kitchen gives you a glimpse of the action before you’re ushered into the small, six-table space.

The menu is as petite as the dining room, but with five snacks, seven small plates, three sharing plates and three desserts, there’s still plenty of choice – if, by some miracle, you’re not tempted to order one of everything.

Start with plump pickled anchovies, deep-fried in squid ink batter with seaweed tartare sauce. Next, try the small plates. The crispy pig’s head croquette with smoked apple sauce, fermented apples and shallots was confident and complex. The most surprising dish of the night came in the form of beautifully blow-torched mackerel sitting on dill yogurt with gooseberry, cucumber, nasturtium and miso. The charred skin cracked under the fork, revealing buttery, raw flesh. Each bite revealed a new flavour, subtle and multi-layered. Also worth mentioning were the prawns with paella, which had the perfect, chewy, bottom-of-the-pan layer of saffron-infused rice, under juicy, garlicky crustaceans.

There’s a small but interesting wine list, including bottles from the USA, France and Spain, and all drinks from downstairs in the pub are also available in the restaurant. A rhubarb and custard tipple was incredibly refreshing – and when the cocktails are two for £10, it would be rude not to.