insideKENT Magazine Issue 43 - October 2015 | Page 65

FOOD+DRINK

The Charming Birdies
Located on Harbour Street in Whitstable, nestled in amongst boutique shops and
treasure trove type stores, is Birdies. And it is charming. Although it is much
more than that; Birdies is elegant and comfortable, a cosy French-style bistro in
beautiful East Kent where intimate meals for two or large and joyful gatherings
of friends can take place all at once, with no one feeling as though they don’t
belong. It is, in a word, lovely. BY LISAMARIE LAMB
My partner and I were
welcomed warmly and shown
to a table set with a checked
tablecloth, heavy cutlery, and
a rose in a vase. All around us
families and couples were
enjoying their lunch, and the
surroundings certainly added
to the magic of the place; the
walls were covered in old ads,
family photos stretching back
decades (including an oh-sohappy couple on their 1940’s
wedding day), and large mirrors
that gave the dining room a
lovely light, bright feeling. There was a dresser along one wall that contained
bottles of local beer (Spitfire and organic Whitstable Bay). Even the handwritten
menus and specials’ blackboards were a nice touch. Birdies is not pretentious,
it is not trying to be something that it isn’t… it doesn’t need fancy gimmicks;
it is simply delightful.

hot, with just the right amount of
seasoning. There was a lot of it too,
and with the addition of the
homemade bread and butter that
came with it, it would have made a
fine meal on its own for someone
with a smaller appetite than mine.
Our main courses – half a lobster
with saffron cream and mussels for
him; deep fried crispy fillet of sea
bass with soy and ginger for me –
followed after a nice interval that
allowed the starters to settle but
didn’t leave us wondering where
the next course was. Both meals
came with rice and vegetables
(green beans and a Mediterranean
ragu), but my partner chose to
exchange his rice for chips. Lobster
and chips, why not indeed? And
they were good chips too, crispy
and salty. It was all good, come to
that. I am not a fan of mussels; I
don’t like the texture, I find them
too chewy to enjoy, but I was
persuaded to try the ones at Birdies,
and my, what a revelation! Soft and
succulent and tasty too. As for the
sea bass with soy and ginger,
despite my rather full-up feeling, I
just had to finish the plate; it was

For our starters we chose the rock oysters (of course, we were in Whitstable,
after all), and the soup of the day which was a lobster bisque. As we waited
for the food we couldn’t help but overhear an elderly woman seated behind
us. She had spotted another lone woman enter and, with nowhere else to
sit, she had offered this newcomer a seat at her own table. They had never
met before, but they began to chat comfortably (praising Kent as they went)
as though they were old friends. Perhaps this is the kind of effect Birdies
has on people. If so, then it is a very special place indeed.
The starters were excellent. The oysters – rock oysters, locally caught –
were salty and tangy with lemon, and the lobster bisque was creamy and

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too delicious not to. This was fish
that ta 7FVB