Seafood Feast

There can’t be a better way to celebrate summer than with a seafood meal consisting of nine courses plus an optional cheese board.

Crab tart with grapefruit granite and lemon curd.

The Wheelers tasting menu is available for dinner only and features locally sourced oysters, crab, fish, fruits and vegetables.

Beer battered oysters, lobster and mango rice crackers left and southern fried monkfish cheeks.

This family run restaurant opened here in Whitstable in 1999. Delia and Mark currently run this favourite eatery of mine. They took over from her mother Martha and her father Fred.

Tandoori mackerel and Indonesian prawn chowder.

When Delia was just a teenager she was taught how to open oysters and serve them to the customers.

Then she started learning how to cook lobsters, winkles, whelks and her favourite brown shrimps.

Scallops and pork belly on a bed of peas.

Mark started college but in his surprisingly large amount of spare time he cooked traditional fish soup and began experimenting with delicate pastries. The crab and prawn tartlet, still on the menu, became his signature dish.

Wild sea bass with a vegetable risotto and chard.

Typically Mark left the seaside for London to learn more about cooking. He came home in 1999 as Delia was ill to just manage the oyster parlour whilst she recovered.

Potato bread served with chicken whipped butter.

However he saw Wheelers in a totally different way and started producing new exciting dishes that locals were queuing for like his lobster lasagne and crab cakes.

Delia and Mark struggled to keep up with the demand, cooking in the old galley kitchen so they knocked it down together with the outside toilet.

They currently prepare and cook food in a fantastic, professional kitchen just at the back of their charming restaurant. They now also have a deli counter so you can just grab a few arancini balls or fresh fish to have at home.

The tasting menu which we enjoyed very much was born once the pandemic was over. The selection of ingredients is unique and believe me you will find it quite hard to pick your favourite dish. I like a challenge though so to me it was the mackerel curry.

Whilst having each course you better start thinking of what you like best about it as the staff will come around, ask for your feedback, listen to it carefully and then pass it on to the chef. So it is like Tripadvisor but you don’t have to write your comments and post them. Actually even if you try you will find submitting an online review quite difficult as there is pretty much no reception in here.