TABLE-HOPPING
Our latest restaurant recommendations plus street-food spots from across the UK
Our latest restaurant and streetfood recommendations
Market Square, Folkestone
Market Square is a bright, modern addition to Kent’s coastline, offering fresh, zesty food that you can feel good about eating. There are quiet nooks for intimate evenings, a family-friendly coffee area at the front alongside floor-to-ceiling windows, a quirky bar for a quick espresso or after-work drink, and canteen-style seating up by the kitchen where you can grab a quick bite or make an evening of it with a group of friends.
The menu stays away from refined sugars and is brimming with vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options, such as shichimi togarashi fried tofu, crispy on the outside and silky on the inside, or vegetable bhajis, which are fluffy, earthy, spicy and sweet. The mains are substantial, usually served with grains or rice, and embrace a range of cuisines. Satay chicken is succulent and the sauce robust and full of umami flavour. Gochujang butternut squash is a joy, bringing together the earthy sweetness of the squash and the depth and spice of the chilli paste. Tacos come piled high on proper corn tortillas, with fillings including roasted cauliflower, sticky sesame salmon and pulled chicken with smashed avocado. Drinks are just as well considered with an interesting cocktail menu, local beers, a very approachable wine list, great coffee and a selection of refined-sugarfree soft drinks. Put it this way, you won’t struggle to find something delicious to eat or sup here. marketsquarefolkestone.co.uk
Osip, bruton, Somerset
The décor of Osip is an expression of chef Merlin Labron-Johnson’s fuss-free approach. While the elegant new hotel that houses the restaurant, Number One, is a tasteful riot of pattern on pattern, the intimate, bistro-style dining space has a natural, pared-back look with stripped and tiled walls, pale linen tablecloths, vintage mirrors and a ribbon of green banquette seating.
While we waited for our starters – retro-sounding but devilishly modern eggs mimosa and financiers filled with velvety pumpkin purée and topped with crisp sage leaves and shavings of cured yolk – we’re served cups of bone broth with lapsang souchong and roast wild duck bones. Savoury, with just a hint of sweetness from bright-green leek oil, these hinted at more good things to come.
Which they did. First, a plate of carrot, mouli, radish and beetroot pickled so deftly that the overriding flavours were of each individual vegetable, not what they had been steeped in. Then springy wedges of treacle and ale sourdough with potted pheasant and smoked butter sprinkled with tiny shavings of grated duck heart.
A main course of ‘Bird’ brought morsels of buttery roast chicken with smoked hay and apple sauce, finely diced red cabbage and bread sauce (don’t miss the tourte de gibier, though, a glossily glazed pastry dome enveloping mallard, pork shoulder and swiss chard), while a luscious crème caramel drenched with Somerset cider brandy was wobbly as a drunken apple picker and impossible to stop eating.
The restaurant’s unusual knife handles, we were told, are made with recycled material – a fitting metaphor for a restaurant shaping ancient Somerset ingredients into something excitingly fresh. osiprestaurant.com