On the hottest day of the year (27° on the first of May!), we headed off to have lunch in the Kitchen Garden Restaurant in the Pig at Bridge Place just outside Canterbury.
This Pig Hotel is such a lovely place and is a short (but expensive) taxi ride from Canterbury station to the picturesque village of Bridge. There’s also a bus service from Canterbury bus station (route 17, 10 minute travel time) but be warned that the return bus service is infrequent and timings are not very reliable.
Because the weather was so amazing on our visit, we decided like everyone else to sit outside on the terrace overlooking a pretty little stream and the Kitchen Garden. This is a delightful spot with the sound of birdsong and the occasional visit from a robin and blackbird. Creating a lovely ambience.
We ordered from the Mid week lunch menu (£32.50 for three courses). We had some extra bits including some rather delicious Truffle potatoes and a couple of glasses of wine raising the bill to £140 for two people.
The food is fairly conventional, it’s well cooked using ingredients from the grounds and suppliers within a 25 mile radius (as explained on the al a carte “25 miles menu”). The wine list is good and there is an interesting selection of non alcoholic drinks. The service was excellent.
Be sure to allow time for wandering around the Pig Hotel grounds and the Kitchen Garden which is the location of another outdoor eating spot called the Garden Oven that serves flatbreads.
Overall the place reminded me a little bit of ‘Le Manoir aux Quat Saisons‘. It’s a different style of food, but the stunning location is comparable.
Update : Returned for lunch on another scorching summer’s day, this time we went a la carte and enjoyed relaxing in deck chairs on the grounds and indulging in cocktails in the courtyard post lunch.
We’ve visited a few times, indulging in their rather excellent cocktails, we were also very pleased to see that they had a Tapas menu (served after 5:00 pm on Thursday & Friday and after 12:00 noon on Saturday – and Sunday during the Summer), we just had to check it out. 
The Tapas was excellent, very authentic, definitely the best Tapas I’ve had in Ramsgate (and just as good if not better than some I’ve had in Spain). We had six dishes for two people which is probably ideal for an evening meal. Two per person for a light lunch would work too, the Vegan Seaweed Croquettas and the Anchovies, Roasted Peppers, parsley oil worked especially well together. We also just had to order a couple of their rather tasty French Martinis. It was impressive that the lunch time staff made just as good a Martini as the evening staff. 
We returned for more Tapas, eating in the garden this time. The Serrano Ham, Manchego, Almonds & lavender infused honey was a real treat. The Calamari was excellent and the Cured Ham & Sobrasada Croquettes were so tasty. Just the perfect place for lunch on a sunny day. For more information on the Tapas see 
The Bedford Inn on West Cliff Road is a short walk up from the town centre. Addington Street & 
The quality of the dishes varied quite a bit on our visit. The stand out dish for me was the ‘Gnocco, burnt red pepper aioli, parmesan’. The ‘Bayonne ham croquettes, green romesco, basil’ and the ‘New potatoes, coronation mayo, coriander, pickled shallot’ were very tasty too. The ‘local heritage tomato carpaccio’ and ‘Trout tartare, kohlrabi, cherry, ponzu’ were fine, but the ‘Courgette ribbons, mint, pistachio, buttermilk’ and the ‘Burrata, charred peach, basil, toast’ were not so successful.
