Canterbury feeds three quite different populations: pilgrims and tourists in the centre, a large student body from two universities, and a prosperous East Kent commuter belt. The result is a food scene with more range than a city of this size usually manages — proper farm-to-table cooking, a strong cheap-eats layer, some very old inns, and the best oyster beds in England ten kilometres up the road.
Start with the one that is genuinely unusual. The Goods Shed by Canterbury West station is a Victorian railway shed converted into a permanent farmers’ market, with producers’ stalls — butcher, fishmonger, baker, greengrocer, cheesemonger — and a restaurant on a mezzanine that cooks whatever the stalls have that morning. It is open most of the week rather than one day, and it is both the best lunch in Canterbury and the best place to shop for a picnic.
The Old Weavers House on St Peter’s Street is the timber-framed building on the river that appears on every postcard of Canterbury, and it is a working restaurant rather than a museum. It is touristic and it is also genuinely pleasant, particularly at a table over the water.
The Millers Arms by the river at St Radigund’s, the Falstaff outside the Westgate and the Maidens Head on Wincheap are all old inns with rooms and kitchens attached. The Thomas Ingoldsby on Burgate is a Wetherspoon in a fine building, which is the correct use of a fine building on a tight budget.
The Cook’s Tale on Beer Cart Lane is the modern Indian restaurant that most Canterbury people name first, and it has built a following well beyond the city. Olive Grove on Best Lane covers Mediterranean cooking, Las Iguanas in the Longmarket does Latin American, and Bill’s on Rose Lane is the reliable all-day option that families default to.
Beyond the chains, the lanes off the high street — Palace Street, Sun Street, the Borough, Beer Cart Lane — hold most of the independents, and the turnover is high enough that a list goes out of date quickly. Walk them and read the boards; that is how Canterbury eating works.
Two universities give Canterbury a substantial cheap-eating layer that visitors often miss: kebab and burrito places, noodle bars, bakeries and a lot of good coffee, mostly clustered along the northern end of the high street and towards the university on St Stephen’s. It is a genuine advantage of the city — you can eat well here for very little, which is not true of most cathedral towns.
Canterbury has an unusually good pub stock for its size. The old city pubs are small, wooden and frequently crooked; the Parrot, the Dolphin, the Unicorn and the Bell and Crown are the names that recur. Shepherd Neame, based at Faversham fourteen kilometres west, is Britain’s oldest brewer and its beers are everywhere here — the brewery itself runs tours and is a reasonable day out.
There is also a real-ale and craft-beer walking tour of the city, which tells you something about how seriously the subject is taken locally.
Ten kilometres north, Whitstable has been an oyster town since Roman times and is now one of the best places to eat seafood in England — from a plastic tray on the beach to a proper restaurant on the harbour. It is a twenty-minute bus ride, and an evening trip out for oysters and a walk on the shingle is one of the best things you can do from a Canterbury base.
Herne Bay and Faversham are the same sort of proposition at a lower price.
There is a good deal of it in the cathedral quarter, most of it aimed at visitors and priced accordingly, and several better options a couple of streets away. The Beaney has a café, and the cathedral precincts have their own. For something quieter, the cafés along Palace Street and around Northgate are where residents go.
Kent is the Garden of England and it shows in season: cherries and apples from the orchards around Faversham and Teynham, cobnuts in autumn, asparagus in May. Whitstable oysters, obviously. Romney Marsh lamb from the south of the county. And Kentish wine — the North Downs chalk is the same geology as Champagne, and several of England’s best sparkling wine producers are within half an hour.
Booking. Canterbury fills at weekends, through the summer, and during the October festival. Book dinner rather than hoping.
Term time. The universities change the character of the city considerably. In term the cheap end is busy and lively; out of term, in July and August, the tourist end takes over.
Sundays. A number of independents close on Sunday evening and Monday. Check before setting out.
Dogs are welcome in a large proportion of the pubs, and Canterbury has a well-established dog-friendly scene.
There is a straightforward geography to Canterbury eating. The streets immediately around the cathedral — Burgate, Sun Street, the top of the high street — are where the visitor money goes, and the prices reflect it. Walk five minutes in any direction and both the quality and the value improve: north towards Northgate and St Radigund’s, west past the Westgate into St Dunstan’s, or south towards Wincheap.
The rule that works in most cathedral cities works here: eat where the students and the residents eat, and use the cathedral quarter for a coffee and the view.
Canterbury is well set up for assembling a meal rather than buying one. The Goods Shed has a butcher, a fishmonger, a baker and a cheesemonger under one roof most days of the week. The high street market and the delis on the lanes cover the rest. And the city has an unusual number of places to sit and eat it: Westgate Gardens along the river, the Dane John lawns, the Franciscan Gardens, or the beach at Whitstable twenty minutes up the road.
Breakfast at one of the cafés on Palace Street or Northgate, away from the cathedral crowd. Mid-morning coffee at the Beaney, which is free to walk into. Lunch at the Goods Shed, where you can eat what the stalls brought in that morning. Afternoon tea somewhere in the lanes rather than the precincts. Dinner at the Cook’s Tale or one of the independents on Beer Cart Lane, booked in advance. And a last drink in one of the small old pubs off the high street.
That is a full day of eating well in a city where it is very easy to eat indifferently, and the whole circuit is inside ten minutes’ walk.
A university city with a young population handles this better than most cathedral towns. Dedicated vegetarian and vegan menus are standard rather than grudging across the independents, the Goods Shed producers cater for most requirements, and the Latin American, Indian and Mediterranean restaurants all have substantial meat-free sections. It is one of the practical advantages of Canterbury’s student population that visitors benefit from without noticing.
The Goods Shed for lunch and for the experience; the Cook’s Tale for dinner; the Old Weavers for the view.
The Goods Shed by Canterbury West station, open most of the week rather than one market day.
Less than you would expect. The student population keeps a whole tier of cheap eating alive alongside the tourist restaurants.
Whitstable, ten kilometres north, twenty minutes by bus.
A great many, most of them old and small. Shepherd Neame from Faversham is the dominant local beer.