THE SPORTSMAN: I DO LIKE TO BE BESIDE THE SEASIDE

The Native Oyster Season has only a few weeks to run. For me, when they’re on form, they’re the finest natural product these shores can produce. I like them so much that when I’ve just eaten a dozen and am asked what I’d like for dessert my usual response is “another dozen, please”. Greedy ? Certainly - so shoot me - but you need to get them while you can.

Much as I enjoy slurping them in the finest places in London (Bentley’s is the best in my opinion) there’s nothing like a little trip to the coast to eat them at the source. So when my gastronaut chums, Sam and Scott, invited me down to The Sportsman one Saturday I didn’t need much persuading.

I try and visit The Sportsman at least once a year. I’d like to visit more often but it’s becoming ever more difficult to secure a table at the weekend. They could break their one sitting rule I suppose and try and cram in more people but to their credit they haven’t. A really refreshing attitude in a industry where the first thoughts after opening a successful restaurant seems to be how the concept can be rolled out.

For those who haven’t visited (and if not, why not ?), Stephen Harris’s cooking is some of the most enjoyable to be found in the UK. There is an apparent simplicity to the cooking which allows the quality of the ingredients to shine through. I say apparent because when you taste the food you realise there’s a lot of skill and intelligence at work in this kitchen.

Take for instance an amuse of a half-dozen Oysters. Three were the beautifully sweet local natives and the rest had a sliver of the home-cured ham and a little apple juice. Normally, I like my Oysters unadorned but had to admit that the dressed ones worked very well: you got the saltiness from the bivalve and meat followed by a wave of sweetness and a little tartness from the apple. Other dishes similarly delivered layered hits of flavour. Very clever but not clever clever.

Unlike many tasting menus which become a sequence of expensive ingredients in over-reduced sauces and which pall long before you’ve had your second pre-dessert/little something from the kitchen, the one at The Sportsman keeps your tastebuds titillated so you’re always keen and ready for the next course.
And for a very relaxed three hours (have I mentioned they don’t turn tables here ?) the courses kept coming. Scallops, prepared in three ways: wrapped in hot, salty, crispy, Lardo; simply cooked in seaweed-enriched butter and – my favourite - as a delicate Carpaccio with Turbot Roe.

Impossibly intense Chicken Liver Parfait with Mushroom Carpaccio. That ham. Perfectly cooked Turbot. Lamb Belly done in the St Ménéhoulde way. A hunk of Larry simply served with a rosemary-scented jus. Desserts galore including a clever crumble dish.

If ever there was a place for London foodies jaded with the identikit and mediocre offerings of the capital then The Sportsman is it. It really does refresh the parts that other restaurants cannot reach. And those fanatics who live by the local and seasonal mantra need only look out of the window to see their main course (see photo 1).

THE SPORTSMAN REDUX

The future looks bright
On that train all graphite and glitter

Just under a year ago I visited and subsequently raved about The Sportsman a restaurant in Seasalter near Whitstable. As they had recently received their first Michelin Star a return visit seemed like a good idea and since I could visit during the week I could try out their tasting menu which is not available at weekends. In a very relaxed and enjoyable environment I had a meal that it will be difficult to better until I return here. Chef Stephen Harris really does know his cooking chops.

What impresses me most about the food at The Sportsman is that everything tastes of itself. There is no obfuscation that you might get at lesser places, no gussying up or overworking of ingredients. So even in the little starters the Breast of Lamb St Ménéhoulde with a little mint sauce was intensely lamby and the little pork scratchings with apple sauce intensely…well you get the idea. This food really presses, sorry, pounds all my buttons.

Tasting menus can be deadly dull: a succession of dishes that you don’t feel much effort or passion has gone into. They begin to pall after three or four courses and you just want to get the whole thing over with. Here, you’re always eager for the next course.

After the little amuses there’s a cup of chowder – perfect for when there’s a bit of a chill in the air – thick with bacon and mussels and sprinkled with chives and a powder made from dried scallop roe.

A conversation with Emma and Philip, who handle FOH with friendliness and professionalism, was interrupted by an interesting smell. Now I’m partial to aged hams (think Spanish Jamón Ibérico de Bellota or Meryl Streep) but the depth of taste, complexity and sheer hamminess (sorry) of this 18 month Salt Cured Ham was amazing. A little goes a very long way.

There’s technique on show too. A spankingly fresh fillet of Brill was cooked just to the point where the flesh becomes opaque, in other words perfectly. So many restaurants fail to get this right. Two large hunks of Sirloin came evenly rare in the middle with a good char on the outside. The small seams of fat in the beef making it a lot tastier than this cut usually is. Excellent greens and well-judged sauces (the smoked herring roe sauce with the fish being particularly good) made these into dishes that would stand alone as main courses from the alc at other restaurants. There’s even a little Tatar of Brill which comes with a soya foam on top for those people who like that sort of thing. I’m not fussed particularly, but it was delicious.

Amongst all the serious stuff there’s a fun element too. A blood-orange lolly came in what was billed as cake milk, the latter component taking me back to when I was small and my mother let me lick the mixing bowl.

If we hadn’t had an Industrial Revolution there would probably be a lot more places like The Sportsman in the UK. But we did and there aren’t. There’s nothing to stop any other budding chef/restaurateurs though trying to emulate what Stephen Harris is doing here which would a very good idea indeed.

And if all the great food, booze and conversation wasn't enough they even arranged for one of the nice women who served me to ferry this ageing flâneur back to Faversham train station. Now how's that for service.

The Sportsman

IN THE SUMMER ALL THE SWELLS
JOIN IN THE SEARCH FOR SUN AND SAND

I love cities in general and London, my home for the last thirty years or so, in particular. True, the public transport system is unreliable and always seems on the point of complete breakdown, but the excitement, the history, the sense of the possible (not forgetting the jellied eels) more than compensate and make it one of the greatest places on Earth.

From time to time though it does all become a bit much and I need to wind down and get out of the City, if only for a few hours. As someone who hardly ventures out of areas of London without an E in the postcode this would be difficult for me but friends whose opinions I trust told me that Whitstable would be the perfect place for a day trip and that at The Sportsman I would have a nice lunch. And so it proved.

After a swift and surprisingly painless train ride I arrived at a very windy Whitstable station. A brisk walk brought me to the bustling high street where I seemed to have gone through that time portal again (see my visit to Norfolk). Tea Shoppes a plenty, no Starbucks and nice Mr Ahmed still running Light of The Raj Tandoori and a Farmers Market where people were actually buying stuff. Gasp.

It was heady stuff so I ducked into the nearest shop which happened to be a place called Wheeler’s. They had a fine selection of smoked seafood and a lovely looking bowl of jellied eels but I showed some restraint and went for a couple of Whitstable Native oysters. These were up there with the best oysters I have ever had with a clean, fresh, slightly briny aftertaste that goes on and on and on like the finest wine.

I was warned by several locals not to attempt to walk to the Sportsman (“it’s at least three miles”) . I walked anyway but it’s the boredom of going past so many prefabs, bungalows and caravan parks that gets to you rather than the distance. The last half a mile though, along the sea wall, presents a very pleasant vista and if the wind is blowing anything like it did will clear away those big city cobwebs very effectively.

The Sportsman is at the end of a seawall and I was very happy to plonk myself down at the bar with a pint of Shepherd Neame’s Porter feeling all windswept and interesting. I discussed the menu with genial host Philip Harris and sat down while brother Stephen did the business in the kitchen. .

The excellent homemade foccacia and sourdough bread served with briny Lucque olives was more than the afterthought it is in some restaurants. More of those briny sweet native oysters, which went very well with a ½ bottle of Pol Roger, was a very good start to the meal proper.

Great ingredients, cooked simply is a bit of a cliché but still holds true. This was evident my next two courses of a dense, chunky Pork Terrine served with a little quail’s egg and the Thornback Ray served with cockles and moistened by brown butter and aged sherry vinegar. There was even room for a little light-heartedness with a signature dish of rhubarb sorbet with space dust served with a demitasse of burnt cream.

After some decent coffee and brownies I was in the mood for a little ‘something’ extra and not just because I’d had so many oysters. Luckily they didn’t specialise in any clear, wine industry by-products so I settled for a taxi to whisk me back to the station (the thought of the wind and those caravans was too much).

Back in the Megalopolis again I went into a pub and watched a dire England performance. As I walked back home I slipped in some one’s puke. Whitstable seemed a long time ago.