Mediterranean inspired small plates cooked over coal (credit Saltwick Media)
Wyatt & Jones
Recommended in The Good Food Guide and Michelin Guide
Wyatt & Jones is a family-owned, independent restaurant on Viking Bay in Broadstairs, north Kent. Painted in a deep olive green with marble tabletops, counter seating and open kitchen, the 30-cover restaurant is situated under the historic York Gate, with views over the sea. The menu offers dishes of Mediterranean-influenced small plates, with a seafood bias, using meticulously sourced produce, cooked over fire in a state-of-the-art Harrison oven, made locally in Ramsgate.
Soon to be celebrating its tenth anniversary of trading, Wyatt & Jones is run by husband-and-wife team, Jan and Kat Wyatt, with head chef Ryan Whitlock in the kitchen. The trio work well together with a mutual philosophy of good ingredients cooked well. Citing restaurants such as Etxebarri in the foothills of Spanish Basque Country, Lennox Hastie at Sydney’s Firedoor and Australian chef and author of The Whole Fish Cookbook, Josh Niland, as inspirations, the kitchen works instinctively with fire in all its forms and seasonal ingredients. Fish and seafood is sourced from Wild Harbour, a Cornish based family run company of day boats specialising in wild, sustainable and ethically caught species on the South coast. The phenomenal, stop-you-in-your-tracks Galician ex-dairy beef and Mangalitza pork comes from Txuleta. Vegetables and fruit come from local North Kent farms. The team’s passion for wine is shown in the interesting and ever-changing list with a balance of New and Old World wines. Everything on the list is available by the glass.
Start lunch or dinner with a barrel aged negroni and grapefruit, or a glass of sparkling Pelegrim, from the nearby Westwell vineyard in the North Downs, alongside a plate of Maldon rock oysters, either natural or dressed with homemade strawberry siracha and Viking sourdough and smoked cultured butter. Sharing from the small plates’ menu try the monkfish crudo with shiso salsa; octopus tentacle with mojo rioja; squid, ink rice, sobrasada and tarragon; butterflied mackerel, xo sauce and burnt lime; Mangalitza pork chop with blackberries and tarragon; 42-day aged sirloin, ancho chilli and aged beef fat butter; stuffed romano pepper, garbanzo beans, romanesco, and feta; layered crispy potatoes, bravas and aioli. For pudding, try pineapple bake, coconut and lime sorbet and grilled pineapple or brioche doughnuts and miso dulce de leche.
Part of what was once three old fisherman’s cottages overlooking the sea, the building houses Wyatt and Jones and the newest addition to the family, Flotsam & Jetsam. What started as a pop up during successive lockdowns serving takeaway seafood, frites and cocktails from a hatch from the closed restaurant, is now a permanent site. An instant hit, bestsellers on the menu include cones of fritto misto, crab dumplings, fish tacos and monkfish scampi in squid ink batter, with 14 home made sauces to choose from such as lobster mayo, squid ink hot sauce and Korean chilli. The team’s hard work didn’t go unnoticed, and they were placed on The Good Food Guide’s Platinum List as one of the 18 restaurants chosen for their remarkable resilience and for thriving in the face of the shifting realities of hospitality during the pandemic.
23-27 Harbour Street, Broadstairs, Kent, CT10 1EU
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