7 hours ago
6
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 long lunch seven years ago 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.
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 The Sportsman near Whitstable, and over the years has run several other places all across Kent. Front-of-house Pleasence, meanwhile, recently had a hand in The Goods Shed, 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.
There were just 26 seats in a higgledy-piggledy room, the crockery was mismatched and the cheeseboard featured brie de Meaux, Lincolnshire Poacher and a made-from-scratch chutney. We stayed for hours and talked of it for years afterwards. No slick marketing campaign will ever make me feel the breathless sigh I emit whenever I think back to Hart’s wodge of french toast with fresh raspberries, raspberry coulis and fresh clotted cream eaten on that autumn Saturday back in 2018.
Now the pair have brought that same winning formula to Canterbury: a really good neighbourhood independent with Hart on the stoves and Pleasence being all elegant, semi-naughty and effortlessly capable out front. Franc is possibly a little fancier than the Folkestone Wine Company, however, largely on account of its setting inside the timber-framed premises that make up the city’s Tudor gatehouse for the St John’s hospital almshouses, which are, quite frankly, very, very pretty. A quick wander to the loo in Franc’s upstairs dining room will reveal a gorgeous window view of the almshouses’ gardens that would melt the heart of any historian or horticulturist.
While I praise Hart’s cooking, I think the real star of the show is actually Pleasance. More restaurants, in my opinion, should have at their helm a stalwart, generation X woman who can update a bookings system and uncork a bottle of burgundy at the same time, while also hammering together a trestle table and charming an entire table of eight. One of the keys to good hospitality is the feeling that the proprietors really want to do it; they haven’t been duped into doing it or been held as hostages of fortune. Franc’s menu, served in a slightly reduced capacity in the wine bar downstairs of an evening, as well as more fancily at lunchtime in the restaurant proper, is ever-changing. Fromage de tete with cornichons. Roast lamb with flageolet beans. Turbot stuffed with chicory and served in a lobster bisque. Creme brulee or Basque gateau with plum compote for afters.
We popped by on a recent Saturday lunchtime and ate upstairs from a tiny set menu that offered slices of fried duck breast with caramelised chicory, a vast bowl of brilliant homemade chips and a gorgeously dressed salad. Very French, très simple – and outstanding. The duck arrived all pink and luscious, with its fat perfectly and crisply rendered, while the chicory was sweet yet still deliciously fibrous. This was just great, great cooking. We ate fresh baguette smothered in butter and a plate of leeks vinaigrette that was zinging with mustard and came smothered in chopped egg, shrimps and parsley. Dessert was an unapologetically no-nonsense bowl of fresh raspberries in a deeply meaningful coulis that were served with a scoop of freshly churned verbena ice-cream. When the cooking is this good, you don’t have to play every drum in the kit and bring in extra cymbals.
Franc was quiet when we visited, as if it’s still something of a secret even in Canterbury. It won’t be long before that changes, because this cathedral city is very, very lucky to have it.
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Franc 49 Northgate, Canterbury, Kent, 01227 851804. Restaurant: lunch only, Thurs-Sat noon-2.30pm; Sun 12.30-3pm. Wine bar: Weds-Fri 5.30-10pm, Sat noon-2.30pm & 5.30-10pm; Sun 12.30-4.30pm. Restaurant: set menu only, £36 for two courses, £42 for three. Bar menu: small plates from about £7, plus daily specials, all plus drinks and service
