The Sportsman, Seasalter, Kent

The Sportsman wins Restaurant of the Year (again!)

Stephen Harris’s Kent coast establishment won in both the restaurant and gastropub categories last night

The proprietor-chef Stephen Harris has in the past described the Sportsman as a "grotty boozer by the sea”, and little about this remote, coastal building’s architecture would do little to dissuade passing motorists of this appellation.

However, inside, over the past eighteen years, Harris has turned this unassuming 50-cover pub and restaurant into Britain’s finest example of true ‘locavore’ cuisine. The former punk musician turned chef Harris and his co workers churn their own butter, preserve their own ham, and even extract their own salt from the sea nearby.

 

The Sportsman, Seasalter. Image courtesy of the Sportman's site
The Sportsman, Seasalter. Image courtesy of the Sportman's site

Last night, the Sportsman proved its winning form once again, retaining the Estrella Damm National Restaurant award for the second year running, and also clinching Gastropub of the Year award.

Restaurant magazine editor Stefan Chomka described Harris as “one of a handful of UK chefs to practice genuine terroir cooking down in the Kent estuary,” adding that the place was “a magnificent restaurant and a very worthy number one, congratulations to The Sportsman.”

 

The Sportsman, Seasalter. Image courtesy of the Sportman's site
The Sportsman, Seasalter. Image courtesy of the Sportman's site

We certainly agree. To understand how Harris achieved such high acclaim in so humble a setting pre-order a copy of our forthcoming book The Sportsman here.