Samphire — Restaurant in Canterbury

Our experience at Samphire was unfortunate, I had been looking forward to our booking but I can’t help but only leave 2*.

Our starters were nice, largely preprepared presumably by the head chef or under strict instructions. We had the trout and the croquettes. The trout was slightly overpowered by the sour cream and lacked flavour generally but all in all was all good. Croquettes were good but it is quite hard to mess up cheese and ham.

The issue was the special of the lamb leg (sharing for 2 £45). Okay, so firstly when I am buying a dish designed for sharing I would normally expect to get a slight discount on buying two à la carte dishes, this was not the case! additionally no sides were served with this and so essentially it’s 45 quid for a piece of lamb leg not a huge amount bigger than a sirloin steak. No sides (£22.50 for a bit of lamb no chips per person). You then needed to add eight quid‘s worth of sides in order to have some greens and potatoes. The lamb was pretty poorly cooked to be honest, seasoning was lacking on the outside but mainly it was very, very under, it wasn’t a case of being pink or not liking pink meat, there was huge inch thick pieces of unrendered lamb fat, the actual meat itself was very pink and not in a way that is enjoyable. As a lover of good cuisine and a lover of rare meat I am the first person to want things cooked properly but I certainly wouldn’t order a rump beef steak and asked for it to be rare and I certainly wouldn’t order a fillet beef steak to be cooked well done. When you are talking about leg of lamb serving it that rare is madness, it’s unenjoyable and it’s not what the cut lends itself too. It to me shows Lack of experience in the Chef Who cooked it.

Didn’t particularly like the response I got when I asked for it to be cooked more by the waiting staff who on the whole were extremely friendly, we were actually being looked after by someone in training who is charming and lovely although the ‘mentor’ was the one that dealt with our complaint about the food. She suggested ” oh, we serve all our meat to pink, if you don’t like it like that…“ really didn’t like this, not only should the customers always be treated as right, I really think I was anyway.

For clarity, I like beef tartare, sushi, black and blue fillet etc. i’m not afraid of pink meat, I am afraid of in experience in understanding cooking meat.

45 quid with no sides seem like quite a rip-off to be quite honest. Once you added the sides on your talking about £53 before service. I’m sorry but that would get you to decent quality well cook steak dinners even in central London.

Sorry but given the competition I wouldn’t go spending my...

During a short visit to Whitstable, Samphire looked very appealing but it took my wife and I two days to get a dinner reservation (shortly after 6pm – child free adults beware!). The service was reasonable and not too intrusive, however we were wholly under whelmed by the food. My wife’s cod croquettes (not dissimilar to Dutch Kroketten) were the best thing we tasted although pricey for what is ostensibly pub finger food. My starter of ‘Cornish Sardines’ also tasted fine, but I was concerned that fish of such diminutive proportions had eluded the local fisheries officer’s attention. I grew up in the west country, worked at sea and “know my onions”.

For our main course, both my wife and I had the fish pie; for the price we were expecting fireworks – we got a damp squib. At over £50 (2 portions), even allowing for a ritzy 4x markup, I could turn out a far more luxurious offering for 4 to 6 guests in my home kitchen. My own dish contained 90% salmon, was barely seasoned and had no definition between burnt potato and sauce – chef, be ashamed. Aldi are currently offering a very decent fish pie that will serve 2 to 3 for £5.39. I canvassed some locals before leaving Whitstable and was told that Samphire’s lunch service is OK because they have a deal, but that evening service is for unsuspecting tourists. I can’t believe that so many seem to think this is value for money and rate it so well! Strangely enough we...

We were looking forward to eating here as part of a Easter treat and had tried to pre-book for 7pm but were told can we make it a little later, so settled with the restaurant for 7.30pm. We arrived on time and said we had a table booked and were told 'ooooh you're very late' we've called you and left a message. After explaining how we had booked and the time, the lady explained again in a surly way that we don't have the table now, we explained again the times we had been booked for and again were met with a response in the middle of the restaurant amongst other paying customers that we were wrong and that I would never book at that time in service and that when you get home there will be a message from me. We asked again about a table and were told there wouldn't be one, so we left and at best I would describe the woman that spoke to us as rude and unwelcoming and arrogantly right. After eating elsewhere (a thank you to the Pearsons Arms) and returning home there were no messages on the answer phone or mobile either. Very disappointed in the manner we were treated and how clearly WE had been told we were wrong and how adamant the woman who spoke to us had been about the phone message that never came. We will not be returning and suggest that staff take a step back when dealing with customers and think through all the possibilities where things may have gone wrong, instead of dismissing the guests who are...