Franc, Canterbury, Kent: ‘Just great, great cooking’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

<p>When the cooking is this good, you don’t have to play every drum in the kit and bring in extra cymbals</p><p>Certain new restaurants I’m lured to semi-hypnotically, so rumours a few months back of an impending new venture from Dave Hart and Polly Pleasence slotted straight on to my “I’ll be there!” list. I still remember <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/2018/dec/07/folkestone-wine-company-kent-restaurant-review-grace-dent">a long lunch seven years ago</a> at their previous venture, the Folkestone Wine Company, where a piece of perfect pan-fried hake fillet topped with luscious squid and a zesty gremolata had me actually gasping with happiness. This was truly great cooking.</p><p>And I knew who the chef was, too, because I could see him through a hatch cooking my lunch while I sipped my appassimento. Hart has worked for Stephen Harris at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/26/the-sportsman-seasalter-restaurant-review">The Sportsman</a> near Whitstable, and over the years has run several other places all across Kent. Front-of-house Pleasence, meanwhile, recently had a hand in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jan/04/goods-shed-canterbury-restaurant-review">The Goods Shed</a>, a twinkly, Dickensian-feeling market-restaurant next door to Canterbury West railway station. At the Folkestone Wine Company, the pair served up a simple menu of outstandingly good, French-leaning dishes. I recall Hart’s sweet soda bread with salted butter, as well as his homemade gnocchi stirred through buttery, wilted leeks and layered almost to suffocation point with good black truffle.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/nov/02/franc-canterbury-kent-grace-dent-restaurant-review">Continue reading...</a>