The Rose, Deal, Kent: ‘London has arrived’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent

A plutonium-grade revamp has turned this old-school boozer into a chic magnet for mini-breakers down from the capital

One of the perils of living in a seaside resort such as Deal on the east coast of Kent is that, eventually, London will find you. One minute, you can pop out to Londis in your dressing gown, drink Gold Blend and have no real opinion on nuno felting, then a shift will occur. One of those incomers will paint over a pebble-dashed terrace with Farrow & Ball Arsenic, open a gluten-free macaron kiosk, and the game will be up. For Kensal Rise and Hackney people, that’s like leaving jam out for ants. Soon, you’ll be knee deep in nocellara olives, spoken-word performances and places like The Rose on Deal high street, a recently tarted-up pub, restaurant and boutique hotel.

Any implication that the plutonium-grade revampment of The Rose from rough-and-ready, 200-year-old, old-school boozer to chic magnet for mini-breakers is “an improvement” will doubtless cause the locals umbrage. Nevertheless, it now serves rhubarb mezcal cocktails, tiny bowls of Marcona almonds, wild nettle soup and ox tongue on beetroot. For £200, without dinner, I stayed one Friday night in a bric-a-brac-stuffed room painted in jarring shades of burgundy, turquoise and navy, with a velour curtain in place of a toilet door and a communal Nespresso machine in the corridor. I do not like anyone in this world well enough to forgo a toilet door, while if you speak to me at a communal Nespresso machine at 7am before I have drunk the Nespresso, I will unapologetically hammer you to death with a Muji indoor shoe.