FOOD + DRINK
KELLER SERIOUS FOOD WITH SEASIDE EASE
THE MICHELIN-STARRED MINDS BEHIND THE FORDWICH ARMS HAVE SWAPPED TWEEZERS AND MICRO-GREENS FOR CHARCOAL AND A CORKSCREW ON WHITSTABLE’ S HARBOUR STREET. BY POLLY HUMPHRIS
© Keller
Some people watch tear-jerking reunions on social media, I watch food content- everything from recipes to mukbangs and restaurant makeovers. This summer, I found myself greedily searching for updates, proffered like a slim series of irresistible snacks by the very talented crew behind the Michelin-starred Fordwich Arms near Canterbury- chef Dan Smith and sommelier Elliott Ashton-Konig- on the opening of their brand-new Whitstable venture, Keller.
Out went the fittings of RuLu’ s, the deli that once occupied 28 Harbour Street. In went new parquet, tiles the green of sea glass, a marble-topped bar with stools for four and a refrigerated wall of wine that glows like a jeweller’ s window at Christmas. Keller is German for cellar, a nod to Ashton-Konig’ s heritage, and the logo is a goose with its beak in a glass of wine that he told us is there to signal that, joyfully, nobody takes themselves too seriously here.
Of course, Whitstable has never been short of somewhere to eat an oyster. Wheeler’ s has been steadily shucking since 1856 and the huts by the harbour do a roaring weekend trade. What none of us knew we were missing was a place to perch for a glass of wine and a small plate midweek, or to settle in for a dry-aged rib of beef and a second bottle on a Saturday night, with a kitchen that thinks like a Michelin one and a peach-hued room that’ s kicked off its shoes.
The pedigree behind this perfect positioning speaks for itself. Smith spent five years at The Clove Club in Shoreditch before he and his wife Natasha took on The Fordwich Arms and won a star within their first year. Ashton-Konig ran the wine there, did a stint at the two-Michelin-starred Da Terra in Bethnal Green, then came home to Kent late last year. Day to day, the stoves belong to head chef Ollie Clifford-Cox, a Fordwich alumnus by way of hide and fox in Saltwood. On paper, that’ s a CV that smacks of tasting menus and reverence, but in practice comes serenaded by The Pixies.‘ Here Comes Your Man’ was playing as we sat down and the evening’ s soundtrack swung from Duran Duran to the slow-burn soul of Sault’ s‘ Don’ t Waste My Time’- a wonderfully unforced playlist from which the whole room takes its cue.
Naturally, oysters came first, though with a geographical twist. Maldon rocks from across the water in Essex, one came classic, the red wine vinegar and shallot of the mignonette sharpening the oyster’ s clean salinity, while the other arrived under a green tomato and green pepper gazpacho delivering a tart and grassy bite that tasted like late summer spooned straight over the sea. From the charcoal of the Bertha oven came flatbread, blistered and faintly bitter at the edges, beneath the fragrant fat of mortadella, honeyed peach and milky stracciatella; a delicious salty-sweet-creamy combination. Pomme Anna, potato pressed into thin, buttery layers, then arrived topped with tangy crème fraiche laced with the subtle anise of dill and a kick of anchovy.
If you want proof that a chef and a sommelier can share a brain, order the roast Orkney scallop. It sits with pear and brown butter under a hollandaise made with vin jaune, the nutty, sherry-like wine of the Jura that spends years ageing beneath a veil of yeast before release. A sauce that only a competent cellar could’ ve even suggested, the vin jaune lends a walnutand-warm-spice depth and the pear a mellow syrupiness, while the brown butter tips everything towards toasted hazelnut, pulling the sweetness of the scallop into much more savoury territory.
Just as that vin jaune is no accident, neither was our first recommended bottle, The Orange Point 2023, a skin-contact blend from a union of growers in Naoussa,
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