Want fine dining? Try this ‘grotty’ pub

The Sportsman’s exterior might not win any awards, but its food has. Sophie Denning says never judge a gastropub by its decor

The outside of The Sportsman is nothing to write home about. Standing “in the middle of nowhere”, windswept and just a little bit bleak, the pub looks out of place amid the lambs enjoying the best the saltmarsh has to offer. The inside is not that much more glamorous. It is the kind of place where you can walk in wearing muddy wellingtons and order a pint of bitter. The three rooms are unflashy, plain even, and far less gentrified than your usual garlanded gastropub. Louboutins would look a bit daft here. But take a minute or two to taste the food, and you could be anywhere in the world. There are no Nik Naks to go with your ale, rather oysters with home-made chorizo, and bread with home-churned butter, flecked with sea salt. Roast pheasant or partridge comes on a “risotto” of celeriac, and turbot is braised in vin jaune, in classical French style. It is this fare that has seen the pub score top spot in the Budweiser Budvar Top 50 Gastropub Awards, naming it the best gastropub in 1 The Sportsman, Seasalter, Kent 2 Pony & Trap, Chew Magna, Somerset 3 Pipe & Glass, South Dalton, East Yorkshire 4 Plough Inn, Longparish, Hampshire 5 The Star at Harome, North Yorkshire 6 Freemasons, Wiswell, Lancashire 7 Royal Oak, Paley Street, Berkshire 8 Gunton Arms, Thorpe Market, Norfolk 9 Gurnard’s Head, Zennor, Cornwall 10 Truscott Arms, Maida Vale, London Britain. Last year’s winner was Tom Kerridge’s Hand and Flowers, so it’s in illustrious company. The top 50 is voted for by industry insiders, which goes some way to explaining why a decidedly jolie-laide Shepherd Neame pub in a nondescript spot by the chilly North Sea in Seasalter in Kent, pipped its more salubrious peers to the post. Self-taught Stephen Harris, who took on the seaside pub in 1999 with his brother Philip, is very much a chef’s chef, admired by top pan-shakers from Claude Bosi of Hibiscus in Mayfair to James Lowe, chef/owner of Lyle’s in East London. “It’s incredible what Steve Harris has achieved at The Sportsman,” says James Lowe. “It’s not that easy to get to, and it’s not the prettiest of pubs nor the prettiest of places. He has just worked really hard, with a small team, for years and years. It’s