We’re thrilled to announce The Ferry House has scooped a prestigious 2AA Rosette for Culinary Excellence! The achievement sets us among only 21 restaurants in the whole of Kent to have this award.
This represents another milestone in over 20 years of ownership by our family. It’s been quite the journey from humble country pub origins, to the rustically-refined country restaurant, boutique hotel and wedding venue that we are today.
As a third generation farming family with a long-standing family heritage of food cultivation, our food ethos is passionately important to us. It’s wonderful to see this recognised in the award!
Produce for our menus is cropped from our 1.5 acre Kitchen Garden, alongside salt marsh-grazed beef, wild game and foraged produce from the shoreline and Harty estate. We home-grow produce that is not easily available - perhaps because it’s perishable or is best handpicked to order. With our own garden we don’t have that challenge, so guests can be introduced to dishes with unique, seasonal produce, that’s exciting and creatively prepared, while being approachable and un-pretentious.
We want to share with you some of the words of AA inspector, Salvatore Scotti, who described dining at The Ferry House as “one of the highlights of my stay, with great pride taken in quality produce from the estate and vegetable garden. The hands-on team showed wonderful hospitality from making my reservation, to the time it came to leave.” He also had high praise for our luxury rooms, “filled with coordinated style, elegance, comfort and quality. The bathroom displayed clear sparkle!”
The report really does highlight everything that’s important to us – the quality of our home grown produce, a relaxed dining experience and warm and friendly service. But most of all we’re happy for our team and proud of their contributions - every element of the AA report touches someone’s role here. Hearing the cheers and seeing the emotion among the team when they got the news was a great feeling. We are especially proud of and happy for Head Chef, James Pilcher.
We hope you’ll join us in the coming weeks and months to experience our dining, rooms and pamper treatments for yourself. While you’re here, do take some time to explore the Kitchen Garden and share in the enormous pride we have in our team, and the warm, special and relaxed hospitality we always strive to offer.
Alex & Victoria Burden