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Franc

Kent, Canterbury - French - Restaurant

Perfect balance and effortless simplicity

David Hart and Polly Pleasence’s tiny wine bar-cum-restaurant plays the part of a neighbourhood bistro perfectly. The style is casual, the setting simple with tables set close in both the compact ground-floor wine bar and upstairs dining room, adding to the already strong feeling of friendliness the place generates. And with the culinary compass pointing towards France, the cooking is refreshingly authentic and delicious, the emphasis firmly on simple preparations of top-quality ingredients. The excellence of much that Hart turns out means that in the years spent cooking in the east Kent area – especially the past eight at the Folkestone Wine Company – he has built up an impressively loyal customer base. Bookings do need to be made well ahead for the wonderfully indulgent prix-fixe lunch, the only meal served in the little dining room. However, casual visitors can often be fitted in downstairs at both lunch and dinner where there is a blackboard menu offering the lik...

David Hart and Polly Pleasence’s tiny wine bar-cum-restaurant plays the part of a neighbourhood bistro perfectly. The style is casual, the setting simple with tables set close in both the compact ground-floor wine bar and upstairs dining room, adding to the already strong feeling of friendliness the place generates. And with the culinary compass pointing towards France, the cooking is refreshingly authentic and delicious, the emphasis firmly on simple preparations of top-quality ingredients.

The excellence of much that Hart turns out means that in the years spent cooking in the east Kent area – especially the past eight at the Folkestone Wine Company – he has built up an impressively loyal customer base. Bookings do need to be made well ahead for the wonderfully indulgent prix-fixe lunch, the only meal served in the little dining room. However, casual visitors can often be fitted in downstairs at both lunch and dinner where there is a blackboard menu offering the likes of oysters and egg mayonnaise, venison bourguignon and pork fillet with choucroûte and mustard sauce. 

With such an undeniably populist instinct for the kinds of food and flavours we all love, it’s good to report that the vibrancy of the food is easily matched by a predominantly French, affordable wine list that packs an awful lot into a short space.

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J Alessi

7 April 2026

Outstanding chef Dave Hart and his partner, the fantastic and the lovely Polly Pleasence, in charge front of house, both previously of The Goods Shed in Canterbury and the Folkestone Wine Club and crucially both *live* in Canterbury, know their clientele very very well.

C Roberton

6 April 2026

Small menu changing almost daily. Great wine list at a reasonable price. Authentic French cooking. Extremely personable welcome and service. Such an important addition to a hugely visited city that mainly offers chain restaurants and take aways and needs this sort of unique venture.

P Quinn

5 April 2026

Literally the most best authentic and exquisite french dining you can ever have in the UK, better than alot in France also... Charm, presentation of beautiful, highly seasonal produce done in a simple and perfectly brilliant way. Absolute perfection in dining.

R Griffiths

5 April 2026

An excellent local restaurant that makes you feel like you've walked into a bistro in the backstreets of Lyon. Welcoming staff a menu du jour that makes you feel like youre in the kitchen of an old french chef who has welcomed you home. A fresh glass of Viogner or a bold Bordeaux awaits with the dish of the day cooked to perfection in a kitchen smaller than yours at home. A true gem.

T Dungworth

5 April 2026

Fresh locally sourced ingredients turned into the most sublime classic French cooking by Dave. Wonderfully helpful staff both at lunch and the evenings. Polly and Dave make a great duo and make dining there a great experience.

E Griffiths

5 April 2026

Amazing food and warm hospitality… a true neighbourhood restaurant that makes you feel like you’ve popped round a friends for dinner and they happen to be an excellent French chef that has carefully curated a menu de jour of all your favourite dishes from holiday!

T Tyson

5 April 2026

If I was to imagine the perfect local bistro, I would arrive at something very close to Franc. Family-run, it has the atmosphere of someone’s front room but at the same time feels convivial and celebratory and serves some of the most decadent and pleasurable French food this side of the channel. It’s a riposte to all the blandly commercial new restaurants, whether chains or would-be chains, that plague so much of the UK at the moment.

P Stevens

9 February 2026

Four of us had lunch. The food was delicious beginning with smoked herring with creme fraiche and horseradish and continuing with a fillet of pollock with blood orange for me and roast chicken and artichokes for others. Absolutely fabulous and incidentally great chips too. Pudding was a chocolate marquise for some, cheese for me, the latter slightly disappointing but overall fabulous lunch. Seating is a little cosy but would thoroughly recommend a visit.

VENUE DETAILS

49 Northgate
Canterbury
Kent
CT1 1BEGB

01227 851804

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