Castellum Pizzeria — Restaurant in Canterbury

My review spans years. I update it when I feel to. I'm a regular here.

3rd December 2022

I had 1 starter and 3 mains.

Starter Melanzane alla Parmigiana - £8.95 This was amazing. Very delicious. Only negative is the portion is tiny, so you don't get to enjoy much of it. Order 2 perhaps? It's that good. Perhaps expensive for what you get though portion wise. 5/5

Strong start.

Main 1 Penne Al Pomodoro - £10.95 Was OK. Not much sauce, pasta was cooked with the tiniest bit of bite which was nice. I hate al dente, but this wasn't that. So pasta was cooked well, but not much sauce, and it wasn't that flavoursome. OK portion size. 3/5

Dissapointed somewhat.

Main 2 Pollo Funghi - £15.95 This was amazing. Chicken was tender. Tomatoes tasted incredible as did the mushrooms. Sauce is thin but tasty. Roasted potatoes are very good. Not many of them though. Spinach sadly was undercooked and could do with a little more garlic (my personal taste preference). Tasted like quality ingredients were used. Despite the spinach, this dish is a 5/5. They just have to make sure the spinach is properly cooked.

I was in heaven eating this.

Main 3 Rigatoni Forno - £12.95 This was utterly disappointing. The dish is not rich as described in the menu, and lacks flavour. Not much meat. Pasta on top was dry. Horrible. Cheese was sticky, sticking to my fork, and just had a weird texture that was chewy. This was my last dish so my dining experience sadly ended with a bad dish. The dish needs significant improvement. 1/5

Very very dissapointing end to my meal.

Staff were friendly. Interior is decent. It is however a pretty small restaurant.

Portion sizes are small, which is why I had to order 'so much'. At great cost. Bill came to £51.05

There's ingredients for sale but only the pasta had price marks on them. Or... At least I'm assuming they were for sale. If so, it might be a good idea to have a legible menu with prices somewhere on the wall or something as I couldn't make out the price on the stickers as its far up on shelves.

I didn't take photos of the starter and first main as I was too hungry.

Will go back to try other dishes at some point.

This town needs good restaurants, and it's still missing a good Mexican restaurant. But seems we finally have a decent Italian with hit or miss dishes as it stands.

Update 5 Jan 2025

I'm now a regular here. It's hit or miss as to whether the dishes will taste good or exceptional. The 2 dishes I always order are ALWAYS good. Never below good.

When they do taste exceptional, they're incredible. The pizza I had yesterday was insanely good.

For the same price as Domino's, you can get a pizza from here. Yes it's a bit smaller. But the quality difference is staggering. And obviously taste too. Domino's is total junk. Only downside is Castellum don't offer delivery.

I'm so glad we have a good authentic Italian in town.

Update 6th Jan 2025 The focaccia bread is sadly just the pizza base with some what appears to be oregano on top. It's pretty dry and bland.

This is not how focaccia bread is meant to be.

Update 6th June 2025 I've updated my overall star rating as I feel they deserve 5 stars. Food still does vary in how good it tastes though. I go here very often, usually a few times a week, so I go often enough to notice the variations. I suppose it's to be expected to some extent as its freshly prepared food. There's only a few dishes I ever order, as the others I tried I didn't like which would be personal preference most likely.

The place is always very clean, staff are attentive, head chef (and he's also the owner), works hard.

Friday evenings are loud, with music pumped up loud, and it's busy and guests talk loud. So... There's that. Staff didn't even hear me saying goodbye to them as I left it was so loud.

If you don't like when it's loud, come on any other time than a Friday night.

How the head chef is able to make so many dishes and execute them so well is beyond me. I wish I could cook half as well as he can.

Probably the best...

Hi,

On 15th August we went to this Pizzeria to enjoy a nice dinner after a beautiful day on the beach.

We got seated in the garden and straight away we have been acknowledged by the waitress taking our order.

At that time my wife was pregnant in 29 weeks so we checked all the info regarding food safety.

For my wife we placed the order for seafood pasta with extra double portion of prawns.

The starters arrived in time being delicious 😋 enjoying every bite.

Unfortunately my wife's pasta came undercooked so we asked to reboil/ REHEAT the pasta in a pan or whatever 🤔. I have to mention that the seafood pasta was rich and came with the right amount of prawns (Double)at that time looking amazing on the plate.

They said that they will recook the all dish and it will be out soon. The manager asked if we are ok and we said yes we are fine. The check was done while I was eating my pasta which was delicious and my wife was fine to wait and me continuing my dinner.

After we wait around half an hour pasta came back with less mussels and only one portion of prawns instead of double as we initially asked.

We ask the manager and she said they run out on prawns and on the bill will reflect that they were missing.

Meantime other tables seemed to start getting issues, wrong beers, wrong starters... but all was sorted out fast...

My wife finished, everything delicious even with less prawns and less mussels and there its time for the bill.....

Outrageous.... such a lack of managerial skills which destroyed our experience. On the bill we got charged the full dish and the prawns as double portion.... we couldn't understand and we asked the waitress....

She went to speak with the manager which mentioned earlier that the difference will reflect on the bill, meaning will be TAKEN OFF, and she came back with the manager's answer that we will pay the price for double prawns portion even if we got only one portion and less mussels to cover the cost of the recooked pasta.

For me it's totally unprofessional for a manager to act like this, to hide on the back of the waitress, to not have the decency to come forward and to explain her logic when other restaurants on this days which such competitivity they will remove the dish from the bill COMPLETELY!

She charged us for something we DIDN'T EAT.... to cover a mistake, to reduce cost by charging us when actually we didn't ask for the dish to be recooked, we didn't make a big show, we waited and we enjoyed the food, but we get a bitter taste of such lack on manager SKILLS.

RUINED EVERYTHING BY A SHALLOW MANAGER.

Such a nice dinner with delicious food for which we have to give our compliments to the kitchen because no matter what, they did they're best.

We will not return there and that it's were actually she loose money because she ruined our experience not the kitchen, not the staff but HER managerial decisions.

Restaurants this days want their guest to come back because the money lay on their returning not on portion of prawns or a dish....

We should give one star, but the kitchen and staff did well and no fault can be found on their...

My family and I have been regulars of Castellum since they opened, singing their praises to everyone we know. The waitress took our order, including my daughters request for an Ortolana pizza without cheese as she doesn’t like it. The waitress said ‘so no mozzarella then’, only for us to remind her there was Parmesan on an Ortolana as well. When our food eventually arrived, a different waitress brought her a Diavola with cheese. Obviously not what a vegetarian person who doesn’t like cheese would order. After telling her it was the wrong pizza, the owner came over to tell us that we had ordered a Diavola with cheese, that the waitress had checked the order, and that she should eat it. Alternatively, we would have to wait for everyone else in the restaurant to receive their orders before my daughter would receive her original order. All four of us were stunned, particularly as we were being blamed for the waitress’s mistake - and the rudeness of the owner was absolutely shocking. We were told that if we weren’t happy with the Diavola, we should just leave. Lovely to be treated so well, particularly as a loyal long-term customer. A real shame, but there are plenty of great food options in Whitstable where you won’t be...