Lunch at The Ambrette, in the centre of Canterbury, Kent

# Press visit

Recently, a friend and I were invited to sample lunch at the multi award-winning Indian restaurant, The Ambrette. Located near the picturesque cobbles on Beer Cart Lane in central Canterbury, Kent, we couldn’t wait to try some of their modern Indian-Anglo fusion dishes.

The Ambrette

The Ambrette was originally launched in 2010 in Margate, Kent. Restaurants in Canterbury and Rye in East Sussex quickly followed.

Dev Biswal is their Award-winning chef, and he uses seasonal local ingredients alongside exotic spices to create fusion dishes influenced by regional Indian cooking. It’s not just Indian-Anglo fusion food – as there are elements of French and South East Asian dishes throughout the menu too.

Restaurant Interior

Upon entering the restaurant, the first sight is that of a mini-grand piano as a centrepiece, and a long well-stocked bar.

We’d have loved to have heard the piano being played, but we visited during a quiet lunchtime. The restaurant is quite large, but it felt really friendly – very colourful with brightly coloured velvet cushions accessorising benches and chairs.

The large space felt like it was split into smaller rooms by the clever use of dividers and variations in furniture styles.

The colourful ceiling decorations added an exotic touch (on a rather grey and damp English autumn day!)

Menu

It took a while for us to read the whole menu – every page was an education, trying to work out how the flavours listed in each dish would work together. The food was unlike anything we’d eaten before. For this reason, we listened intently to our friendly server and we chose a couple of appetisers before the starters.

Appetisers

Our first appetiser were Pooris.

These were crisp semolina pastry shells filled with spiced potato and chick pea, sitting over a shot-glass of tamarind-infused water. The pastry shells were very delicate; we poured just a little of the tamarind water inside, and ate the Poori in a single mouthful. It’s a matter of taste, but I’m pleased I didn’t add more of the water as it was quite strong and I feel would have overpowered the flavour of the spiced potato.

Our second appetiser was the Spicy Pork Skin with mango powder, ginger powder and black salt. These looked fantastic and were really nice and crispy, though they lacked the spicy kick we expected to differentiate them more from our regular Sunday roast. Still very nice though.

Starters

The first starter we picked was the Mumbai Masala Papdi, a street food dish with chickpea flour crisps, wheat crisps, fresh herbs and chutneys, with a spicy pea broth. It was very flavoursome with a nice spice and tangy flavour – mild, not too spicy. The chick pea crisps were enjoyable but we felt there were too many as half of them ended up soggy as they were sat in the broth.

The other starter was their Trio of Vegetarian Street Food with crispy poori, sweet potato and chick pea flour dumpling, steamed yoghurt and vermicelli cake and tomato chutney.

This was one of our favourite dishes of the meal. The flavours were lovely and all the components complimented each other.

Main

We picked two Indian Thali Feasts for our main courses – one South Indian Meat Thali and one South Indian Seafood Thali. A Thali is an Indian-style meal made up of a selection of various dishes that are served on a platter; it should offer the flavours of sweet, salt, bitter, sour, astringent, and spicy on one single plate. Basically, it’s a great way to sample a wide range of dishes in a single course!

The two Thalis shared some of the mini-dishes, including saffron rice, lentil with spinach, potato varuval, Indian bread, rice fryums, chutney, coconut yoghurt raita, stir fry vegetables and a sweet of the day.

In addition to the above, the Seafood Thali had tilapia and prawn moilee and steamed seabass. The Non-Vegetarian Thali came with Kerala goat coconut fry and chicken Chettinad; the Chettinad is a classic recipe from the Chettinad region of South India.

We also ordered a side order of Okra.

The Thalis were really enjoyable. There was a lot of food – we left full! Everything worked together well and it was nice to ‘mix and match’ the flavours from the different mini-dishes. It’s a very sociable meal too as we kept sampling each other’s!

Dessert

Of course, we were FAR TOO FULL to think about dessert. WRONG! As well as ordering two white coffees, we chose a Lemon and Pomegranate Bavarois and a Rose and Vanilla Crème Brulee. We’d already sampled the bavarois in our Thalis, but it was nice to try more of it! The crème brulee was a hit too: we thoroughly enjoyed the subtle taste of rose and there was plenty of caramelised sugar on the plate too. It was just the right amount and finished off the meal nicely.

And here’s photos to show how pretty they both looked!

Our Verdict

It was a lovely meal in a very pleasant restaurant with friendly attentive staff. It was undeniably unusual. But that’s what fusion food is all about; it’s designed to challenge your taste buds and perceptions of food. The restaurant’s location is perfect too … in the heart of Canterbury just steps away from the main shopping area with a good variety of stores. Canterbury is a city worthy of exploring in greater detail. When you need to refuel, The Ambrette is close by to offer you a tasty memorable lunch.

Disclaimer

We were invited to sample The Ambrette’s lunch menu in return for a genuine, honest review (which this is).