Posillipo Ristorante Italiano, Broadstairs, Kent.

Having decided to go to the new Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate today it didn't take us long to decide where we should have lunch while we were down there. Last time we were in Thanet we stopped at Broadstairs for fish & chips and spotted a very promising Italian restaurant called Posillipo and filed it away for future visits. Since I mentioned it in my previous blog entry a couple of people have said it's worth a visit, and since Broadstairs is right next door to Margate it would have been rude not to!

As I mentioned before, Posillipo is right next door to a large, empty branch of the Prezzo chain. To be fair to Prezzo, it looked like a really nice place, so why was it so empty? Well, it must be hard to compete with genuine Italian food being cooked right next door when you are only able to offer "formula food" no matter how good it is. Right from the word go we loved Posillipo. We were made to feel very welcome from the moment we opened the door to go in. The long dining room was about three quarters full, mostly with families, and had a real buzz about it. The building backs on to the sea and has a small conservatory on the back that was just big enough for two tables of four, and steps down to a large decked area that will be a lovely place to eat in the summer. We sat at the end of the main dining room and still had a reasonable view of the sea. The dining room itself is decorated in a homely way, lots of terracotta paint, bottles of herbs in oil on little wooden shelves....very Italian in feel and style. As a whole, Posillipo couldn't be further from a "fancy" restaurant. No tablecloths, only paper napkins, wicker based seats, but it all adds to the authentic feel! I had a good lunch in a very similar looking and feeling place just outside Brescia in Tuscany a few years ago.

And so to the food. After such a big build up it had better be good, right? Well, it was. As well as the regular menu, which featured an imaginative mixture of classic Italian dishes, pizzas and pizze bianche, pasta and risotto dishes, there was a portable specials blackboard with a few extra starters, mains, and loads of deserts listed on it. We opted to share the mixed seafood platter from the special starters, and followed it with a pizza each. The seafood platter wasn't cheap, at £13.95 it wasn't expensive either but the price was enough to raise our expectations a notch. It didn't disappoint. It was piled with crayfish, baby clams, pickled anchovies, prawn cocktail, smoked salmon, crab meat on toasted ciabatta and a couple of huge grilled tiger prawns. We were thoughtfully provided with a bowl for the shells and some hand wipes, both of which were necessary as it turned out. The baby clams were the only slight disappointment as they were lacking in flavour, but the rest made up for it. Dee's not a fan of anchovy, but in this lightly pickled form rather than the oily, salty things you usually get she liked them enough to eat three or four. I'm ashamed to admit that there were two pieces of crab on toast when the platter arrived, but so anxious was I to get stuck in that I'd taken a bite before I remembered to take a picture!

While we worked through our platter the tables around us were served with their main courses. We saw linguini with muscles that was beautifully presented with a ring of muscles in their shells around the edge as well as in with the pasta, a likely choice for Dee on another visit as she feels about muscles how I feel about scallops. To Dee's delight, the table next to us ordered the pizza capricciosa she'd chosen, giving her a sneak peek. It looked fantastic! The front window sign writing mentions a wood burning pizza oven and hand made pizzas, and you can just tell that's what you're getting. The capricciosa has a tomato base with mozzarella, ham, mushrooms, salami, sliced eggs and black olives on it. Each ingredient brought something to the dish, either in flavour or texture, and as a whole it worked very well indeed. Together with the carafe of house red wine it was absolutely spot on, in spite of looking a bit like an English breakfast on a pizza base.

I decided to continue the seaside/seafood theme with my choice, I went for the house special Posillipo pizza. Another tomato base, but this time with king prawn, octopus, squid, clams and muscles. There was a fair bit of garlic involved as well, I'd say. The chunks of octopus and huge squid rings were generous and not at all rubbery. It's very easy to over cook squid, which gives it that distinctive elastic band texture, but the chef had avoided that pitfall presumably by adding it late in the oven time. There must have been nearly half a pint of prawns, a good dozen clams and muscles on there as well as a massive tiger prawn, all of which made the pizza base a bit soggy but no less tasty for it. Pizzas ranged from £6 to £12 each, and at just £9.95 Dee's capricciosa was an absolute bargain, particularly as it came as no surprise to our waitress that she couldn't finish it all. No problem, would madam like a box to take it away? Yes, madam would. So that's lunch tomorrow sorted as well!

So all in all we had a superb sharing platter, two excellent pizzas, a carafe of red wine and a bottle of sparkling water, all for £47. To continue the theme from my last entry, I think this is tremendous value for money. Alright, the seafood platter is easy enough to do, and was perhaps lacking in fresh ingredients (however, it is the end of January after all!), but it was delicious, and that is all that matters. The pizzas and atmosphere were fantastic, the wine was tasty and the staff friendly and efficient. It will be very difficult for us to go to Broadstairs and choose to eat anywhere else.

Go there, order a pizza and a desert, sit and watch the sea while you finish your glass of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo or whatever your tipple is, and let the friendly family atmosphere wash over you.

Value for money

There is a discussion to be had about value for money, prompted in no small way by our visit to Broadstairs on Saturday. There are few more depressing places than English seaside towns in the off-season, but Broadstairs is fighting hard to keep itself going. Ok, so there are lots of empty shop units which look like they may well have been bars, cafés or restaurants until fairly recently, but there are many that are open and trading even on a chilly but bright Saturday afternoon in January. And who knows, many may well reopen during the summer season as pop-up restaurants etc.

We had in mind that as we were at the seaside we should have fish & chips, so we had a stroll along the front and a mooch around the old part of town before picking the Submarine Café pretty much at random. It looked fun, clean and more importantly open, so in we went. We had cod, chips & peas with bread & butter and a mug of tea each for just £12 between the two of us. Most main courses were about £5, the deserts were around £2.50. And this is where the value for money bit comes in...about half way through my fish (clearly cooked from frozen, but actually ok) I started to think that I'd rather have paid a few pounds more for something better. But actually, the more I thought about it, the more I thought they had it about right. The food was ok! The chips were good, the peas were nice and the fish was ok, so for £4.95 in a sit-down restaurant this is tremendous value. I'm sure there are places within a short walk that would charge you more, but would what you got be proportionately better? Probably not. If you're out for the day with a young family I suspect you will struggle to find anywhere better to feed your family without spending a lot more money.

Several places stood out as looking worthy of a visit next time we come back, including a really interesting looking Italian place called Posillipo very close to the sea front. Even though it is literally next door to Prezzo's (which was twice the size and had a great looking balcony seating area looking out over the bay) it was packed, while Prezzo's was nearly empty. Certainly worth a look on a future visit, if only for what comes out of the wood burning pizza oven.

Approaching the value for money argument from the opposite direction to the Submarine Café is a restaurant simply called "54". (Can you guess what number Broadstairs High Street it is?) 54 also offers fish & chips, but they charge £14.95 for it. "How can that be value for money?" I hear you cry! Well, for that you get salmon fillet, tiger prawn, monk fish and a scallop in lime & coriander batter with home made hand cut chips in a beautiful looking dining room off tables with white linen and nice cutlery. If it tastes as good as it sounds, then I would argue that in other restaurants we have visited such a dish would cost well over £20. So which is better value for money? Hard to say, and I suppose ultimately it comes down to your personal priorities.

After a bracing walk along the sea wall we stopped at Chiappinis for a hot chocolate and something sweet. I had ice cream (delicious!), Dee had a strawberry tart, we both had glasses of hot chocolate in lovely retro silver plated holders, and it cost exactly the same as our lunches. Somehow lunch felt very cheap, but this felt very expensive. Good value? Not sure, but we liked it. Go to Broadstairs, soak up some of the history, the Napoleonic Eagle, Charles Dickens' Bleak House...or if the weather suits, just sit on the beach and make sand castles...whatever floats your boat!