Beach cheek
Margate House (Margate)
GETAWAYS • Margate
For a small, once-forgotten seaside town on the edge of Thanet, Margate punches above its weight in restaurants and culture – it’s even home to Madonna’s favourite Italian (intel). The latest reason to visit is Margate House, a small boutique hotel steadily growing in popularity since opening in 2023, and its restaurant, Willy’s, which debuted at the end of last year.
On a residential street facing Dalby Square, Margate House occupies a five-storey Victorian townhouse at the Cliftonville end of town, a few minutes’ walk from Walpole Bay. It’s a kid-free zone, which is part of its appeal – owner Will Jenkins has cultivated a Soho House-ish vibe, welcoming cool crowds and arty types for co-working and cocktails in quirky striped tumblers. At its heart is the beautifully decorated drawing room (above), a dusky pink zone with playful art and comfy sofas.
Rooms are similarly stylish: Our king room was small but comfy, with Le Labo bathroom products and happy-making details including a Roberts radio, complimentary tea and coffee, crisps and Haribo (you can help yourself to more sweets in the drawing room). By my bedside was a stack of books by local authors, including Rosa Rankin-Gee’s Dreamland, one of my all-time favourite novels (the TV adaptation is coming soon to the BBC as The Dream Lands).
Breakfast is worth the extra £10 per person. It’s served in my favourite part of the house, a long, narrow basement kitchen featuring a babypink AGA, red-and-white tiles, a long communal table, and a sitting area stacked with coffee-table books and board games. We were supplied with tea and coffee, toast-your-own sourdough with butter and jam, granola, Greek yoghurt, locally sourced pastries and copious fresh berries.
Like the rest of the house, the restaurant has a homey, chic vibe – it’s a casual room at the back of the hotel, with comfy counter seats around the open kitchen, and red-and-white striped seating on the terrace. Staff wear t-shirts with the words ‘I love Willy’s,’ a sentiment reflected by locals and DfLs (down-from-Londoners) visiting for pimped-up comfort food like sausage and mash and a black pudding Scotch egg.
Service is friendly and personal – we arrived late thanks to a punctured tyre and were reaccommodated for Sunday lunch, having kept in touch via WhatsApp. Our roast was excellent: succulent pork belly with sweet apple ketchup, nicely pink beef rump, massive Yorkshire puddings and chilli-spiked carrots. Sticky toffee pudding was joyous, with lashings of salted toffee sauce and terrific stem ginger ice cream.
Things change fast at Margate House. Since our May bank holiday stay, the Sunday offering has pivoted to rotisserie chicken, though the sticky toffee remains. There’s now a cooked breakfast on weekends, and Willy’s is open seven days a week for full English breakfast, potted trout and poached eggs. Jenkins himself was behind the bar on our visit, chatting to regulars about plans to expand Willy’s. With its cheeky aesthetic, charming comfort food and cool young crowd, it won’t struggle to find an audience. –Laura Price
→ Margate House (Margate) • 6 Dalby Sq • Rates from £180/night.