Eating in Margate when everything is booked

Margate's food problem is not quality. It is capacity. The rooms that people travel here for seat between twenty and forty covers, and on a summer Saturday there are several thousand more people in the town than there are seats in them. This guide is about that arithmetic.

Book these, and book early

Angela's, 21 The Parade. A small seafood restaurant with a menu rewritten daily around what the boats landed that morning, which here is literal: the kitchen works directly with a local fisherman as part of a deliberate effort to keep Margate's very small inshore fleet viable. The cooking is plain in the way only confident kitchens manage. Dover sole with green sauce. Poached oyster with trout roe. Skate. They have also spent years pulling plastic out of their supply chain and run a co-operative farm growing vegetables for their own kitchens and for other restaurants nearby. Open seven days April to September, lunch from noon and dinner from six, with reduced days outside that season. Book through their own site.

Sargasso, out on the Harbour Arm, built into the sea wall. Small plates of seafood and vegetables leaning Mediterranean, a drinks list that moves with the seasons, and a room so small that every seat is a stool. Reservations are taken for up to four people; larger groups need to email. Lunch runs Monday to Sunday from noon to 15:30, dinner from 17:30, later on Friday and Saturday. Outside tables can only be booked by email within 48 hours because the terrace has no cover, which on this coast is a real consideration.

Bottega Caruso, 2 to 4 Broad Street. Campanian home cooking from one specific village near Benevento, with pasta made in house and a good deal of the larder imported directly from the family there. Grace Dent called it possibly some of the best Italian food in modern Britain. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Their wine bar and deli, Cantina Caruso, is next door at number 8 and is the easier of the two to get into.

How far ahead? For a summer Saturday evening, weeks. For a Wednesday in November, a couple of days. For anything in the first fortnight of August, when the Carnival, Pride and the Soul Weekender all land, assume the town is full and plan accordingly.

The Monday and Tuesday problem

This is the single most useful thing to know about eating in Margate, and it catches people out constantly.

A large share of the Old Town closes at the start of the week. Bottega Caruso: closed Monday and Tuesday. Cantina Caruso: closed Monday and Tuesday. The Lifeboat: closed Monday and Tuesday. Mullins Brasserie: closed Sunday. Paraphernalia and several other Old Town shops: Thursday to Sunday only.

If you are in Margate at the start of the week, the seafront rather than the Old Town is where the kitchens are open.

No booking required

Some of the best eating here does not take reservations at all, which is a feature.

Peter's Fish Factory, 12 The Parade. The chip shop, thirty seconds from the sand, and by a very wide margin the most-reviewed food business in the town. That is the right measure of what it is: not a find, just where Margate has eaten fish and chips for decades. Open to 22:00 most nights and 23:00 on Friday and Saturday, which on a summer evening is the difference between eating and not eating. Take it to the harbour wall.

GB Pizza Co, 14a Marine Drive, with Main Sands across the road. Sourdough pizza, open seven days, noon to nine and noon to six on Sundays. It is the answer to feeding a mixed-age group after a beach day without three weeks' notice. They take reservations by phone rather than online, so ring 01843 297700 if you are a larger group on a summer weekend.

Mullins Brasserie, 6 Market Place. Caribbean cooking, in the Old Town long before the Old Town was a destination, and the corrective to any account of Margate's food scene that starts in 2011. Closed Sundays.

Forts Café, 8 Cliff Terrace up in Cliftonville. Savoury-leaning brunch and proper coffee, a short climb from the gallery, with a view if you get an outside table. Opens 08:00 on weekdays and 09:00 at weekends, closes at 16:00 every day, so it is a morning place rather than an evening one.

Drinking

The Lifeboat on Market Street is an ale and cider house now run by the Margate brewer Floc. Bare boards, casks, no bookings, and midnight closes on Friday and Saturday. Fez on the High Street is a small bar with no website and no bookings that most of the town seems to agree on, opening mid-afternoon on weekdays and midday at weekends.

If you want to understand the two Margates that people argue about, spend an hour in The Lifeboat and an hour in a Harbour Arm wine bar a hundred metres away. Both are the town. They are just different parts of it, and the drinks cost different amounts.

Two things that are no longer there

Margate's scene turns over fast and published guides lag. Dory's, Angela's smaller sister on the High Street, has closed permanently. So has Hantverk and Found on King Street, whose old web domain now serves online casino adverts rather than a menu. Both still appear in guides written within the last couple of years. Check before you walk somewhere specific.