Sekkoya, Canterbury, Kent: ‘A prime example of why the term “pan-Asian” fills me with such foreboding’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants (2024)

Off to Canterbury for a shufti around the cathedral, a meander through its pretty streets and a spot of lunch at Sekkoya, a vast, gorgeous-looking new pan-Asian restaurant on the Riverside next to an Everyman Cinema, a crazy golf venue and a branch of Heavenly Desserts. The restaurant’s sleek website offers all sorts of bold statements about this hot dining experience (regular readers will be aware that I delight in this kind of Vogon poetry), claiming that it will take us on a “gastronomic journey throughout Asia that transcends ordinary flavours”, and offering cocktails that will “awaken your senses”.

The website emotes grandly in this way for many more yards, so much so, in fact, that I suspect AI. Only a non-sentient being could describe Canterbury’s Riverside as a “vibrant new lifestyle district”, when it’s just an elevated patch of concrete. Maybe Sekkoya is entitled to be cocky, though, because it’s clearly the classiest venue for miles: the place is bedecked in sea-green velour, with shiny floors, pale tan leather seats and an impressive “mural” skylight that gives the impression that you’re dining in a rainforest. Fans of the opulent Chinese restaurant chain Tattu, which is especially big in Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds, will recognise dashes of the modern, high-octane glamour that delights Instagram feeds. Add beautiful bathrooms, Kool & The Gang and George Benson on the stereo, and lovely, chipper serving staff, and they clearly mean business here.

Sekkoya, Canterbury, Kent: ‘A prime example of why the term “pan-Asian” fills me with such foreboding’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants (1)

Yet, as soon as our first plate arrived – a beautiful-looking Thai salad that on the very first forkful revealed itself to be a big mound of wildly under-dressed cabbage – alarm bells started to ring. If only the food offering were as ballsy as the decor. The “small plates” section of the menu lists chicken wings, edamame, iceberg lettuce salad and prawn or vegetable tempura, which makes a trip to Wagamama seem like a street-food jaunt with Anthony Bourdain. This menu seems to assume that its customers have only ever experienced “abroad” on Google Street View. The small plates menu also features a robata selection of chicken satay, grilled padrón peppers or lamb in ginger and black bean sauce.

The menu then moves to steamed gyoza – I had the vegetable ones, which came swimming in soy and a black, sticky snot that was apparently truffle. Actually, truffle does a lot of heavy lifting on Sekoyya’s menu – it’s there in the miso truffle tagliatelle and on the truffle and parmesan fries, too. There are also Korean bao buns with miso crispy aubergine, hoisin chicken, peppered beef or grilled duck. They jammed my aubergine bao into a toast rack inside a bamboo basket, but the bun was of such poor quality that it couldn’t be extracted without disintegrating, by which time all the tempura batter had fallen off the aubergine and I began to suspect we were being filmed by TikTok pranksters.

Sekkoya is a prime example of why the term “pan-Asian” fills me with such foreboding these days. In its original sense, the phrase meant a culinary extravaganza in which the chefs showed off their discoveries from the 23 provinces of China, with a few highlights from Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia thrown in. It was an umbrella term for big, delicious, spicy, sticky and umami. Sekkoya, however, serves large plates of chicken udon, pork ribs in “Japanese-style bbq sauce” and truffle soy rib eye, and makes you think that someone here is deliberately diluting pan-Asian hits and serving them in their safest possible form. It’s the sort of Asian food that was invented for British people and that you’d get at a Cantonese restaurant in Braintree in 1994.

Sekkoya, Canterbury, Kent: ‘A prime example of why the term “pan-Asian” fills me with such foreboding’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants (2)

I had hoped that my main course of masala cod would be the moment things turned around, but its green marinade tasted of precisely nothing: no garlic, no ginger, no chilli, no coriander – nothing. I sought refuge in the pickles that came with it, and relished every second of their mild, vinegary zing. I’d decided against eating this with chips, so went for one of the only other suitable side options, steamed rice, which was totally unseasoned, but there was a lot of it and it did come in a lovely bowl.

“Is it worth looking at the dessert menu?” I asked our server. “Oh yes, it’s very exciting,” came the reply, with what I couldn’t be sure was a straight face. It featured ice-cream and sorbet, yuzu cheesecake, chocolate brownie and those bought-in mochi rice-cake ice-cream balls that pan-Asian restaurants often serve as their only dessert to bore you into leaving early because they want to turn your table. Ha! They wouldn’t shake me off that easily here, and my mango mochi ice-cream ball was the loveliest thing I ate that day; Sekkoya serves them with vanilla ice-cream. Gosh, this is some menu writing, but Sekkoya is sort-of-Asian, and the food’s definitely cooked in a pan, so, technically, they’re not lying.

  • Sekkoya The Riverside, Kingsmead Road, Canterbury, Kent, 01227 286221. Open all week, Sun-Thurs noon-11pm, Fri & Sat noon-1.30am, Sun noon-11pm. From about £35 a head à la carte; Mon-Sat set lunch £15 for two courses, £19 for three, all plus drinks and service

  • Grace’s Comfort Eating podcast is back for its sixth season – listen to new episodes every Tuesday here

Sekkoya, Canterbury, Kent: ‘A prime example of why the term “pan-Asian” fills me with such foreboding’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants (2024)

FAQs

What is the new restaurant in Deal Kent? ›

The coastal town of Deal in southern England is now home to The Blue Pelican, a Japanese-inspired restaurant founded by former Wallpaper* design editor Alex Bagner and her husband, Chris Hicks, also the creative minds behind boutique hotel, The Rose, also in Deal.

Who owns Updown Farm? ›

The owners, Oli Brown and Ruth Leigh, have done a bang up job transforming and restoring what was a dilapidated (but striking) 17th-century farmhouse into a properly idyllic, rural bolthole. Everything about Updown occurs in that precise, hard-to-achieve place that exists somewhere between well-run and relaxed.

What is Deal Kent famous for? ›

Deal became a 'limb port' of the Cinque Ports in 1278 and grew into the busiest port in England; today it is a seaside resort, its quaint streets and houses a reminder of its history along with many ancient buildings and monuments. In 1968, Middle Street was the first conservation area in Kent.

How are the Kitchen Nightmare restaurants doing? ›

Per Reality TV Updates, just a dozen of the show's 77 "nightmares" are still operating as of mid-2023. That means just 16% of restaurant rescues carried out by the show were truly successful in the long run.

Does Rachel Allen have a restaurant? ›

She soon appeared as a guest on The Saturday Night Show to discuss the subject. Allen won the 2012 Irish Book Award for Best Non-Fiction for Easy Meals. March 2017, Allen opened her first restaurant 'Rachel's' in Cork's Washington Street, part of a business venture with her husband, Isaac, and publican Paul Montgomery.

Who owns the Blue Pelican deal? ›

The Blue Pelican is a venture involving Jeffery-Green and co-owners of nearby boutique hotel The Rose, Chris Hicks and Alex Bagner, where Luke had previously cooked for five years after having spent five years cooking in Tokyo, meeting wife Miaki along the way.

What restaurant replaced the maisonette in Cincinnati? ›

3CDC bought the building in 2006 and partnered with the Boca Restaurant Group to renovate it into a new home for Boca, an Italian trattoria called Sotto, and office space for the Boca Restaurant Group.

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