Things to Do in Deal, Kent: A Food-Led Day Trip from London
Every Saturday through the summer, I'm out playing cricket. This particular one should have been no different, but I'd managed to click the wrong weekend in the availability app and taken myself out of selection entirely. So for the first time in a while, we had a free Saturday with good weather and nothing in the diary.
One of our favourite things to do on a sunny day is to jump in the car and spend a day on the Kent coast. Whitstable, Margate and Broadstairs are our usual haunts, but this time we decided to head to Deal and see what it had to offer.
Deal is small, but it is quietly becoming one of the best day trips from London for anyone who likes to eat. When traffic is light, it is 90 minutes to two hours from south London, walkable from end to end, and full of great foodie spots. In this post, we will go over our recommendations for how to spend a day in Deal.
A Day Trip to Deal
On the way from London: Pastries at Gilda and cheese at Finnian's, Court Lodge Farm (a short A2 detour near Canterbury)
Late morning: Park by Deal station, then coffee at Middle Street or Climpson and Son.
Lunch: The Blue Pelican for Japanese-inspired seafood. Book a counter seat.
Afternoon: Walk the pier, then spend time shopping in the old town
Dinner: Seafood at The Rose or Jenkins and Son
Evening: Wine at Le Pinardier or a pint at The King’s Head, then the road home.
From London: about 90 to 180 minutes by car
Getting to Deal from London
The fast train from St Pancras runs direct to Deal in around an hour and a half
The drive from where we are in South East London takes between 90 and 120 minutes, depending on traffic
We drove, partly for the flexibility and partly because driving always gives us the chance to find places to stop along the way. Once in Deal, we found parking right by the train station and left the car there for the entire day for just £5. The car park is small, though, so spaces go quickly. Aim to arrive before mid-morning if you want one or find a space in another car park nearby
Breakfast en route at Court Lodge Farm
If you drive, we highly recommend you build in a 5-minute detour off the A2 near Canterbury.
Tucked into a courtyard of farm buildings at Court Lodge Farm in Bishopsbourne is a little cluster of independent producers, and two of them are worth the diversion on their own.
Gilda is the bakery. It was opened in 2022 by Jon Warren, who ditched a career in London finance and opened the bakery after being inspired by his twelve years in San Sebastián. The name fits twice over: gilda is an old word for golden, and also the briny little Basque pintxo of olive, anchovy and guindilla pepper. We went in for some morning pastries to munch on in the car park.
Across the way from Gilda is Finnian's, a cheese shop and deli run by Finn, who spent years in the wine trade and a long stint at Macknade before opening his own counter. He could not have been more generous with his time, walking us along the cabinet, cutting slivers of this and that, and talking us through every one. He had a lot of Greek produce that day, so we left with a tub of Greek soft cheese and a bottle of white wine to enjoy later.
A bit about Deal
Deal is a small Georgian town on the east Kent coast, sitting on a flat shingle beach between Sandwich and Dover. It has a long history as a port and smuggling town, and the streets of the old town still feel largely untouched, narrow and lined with independent shops, pubs and cafes. The seafront is low-key and unadorned in the best possible way: no arcades, no funfair, just a long pebble beach and a Victorian pier stretching out into the Channel. It’s much quieter than all of the other Kent seaside towns we listed earlier.
The pier is something of an institution in its own right. Sea angling is woven into the fabric of Deal, and we found the pier lined with locals fishing, some with two or three rods out at once, watching the water with great patience. Some families had set up camp, and each parent and child had a rod to look after. We walked around for a while, hoping to see a catch, but never quite did (maybe we were too early).
Coffee in Deal
Our lives revolve around good coffee, so of course, we were going to scout some of the best options in Deal. Our road trip usually starts with a flat white from Pantry in Forest Hill for the drive, and once we get to deal, we pop into 2 lovely coffee shops.
Middle Street Coffee is the local favourite since 2023, a small independent working with Assembly roasters in London. The newer arrival (in 2026) is Climpson & Sons, which will be familiar to anyone who has queued on Broadway Market in East London, where their roastery is located. This is the roaster's first cafe outside the capital, opened in the old Frog and Scot site on the high street, and the coffee was every bit as good as you would hope. It is a fine spot to sit and plan the rest of your afternoon.
Lunch at The Blue Pelican
If you’re in Deal for just one meal, make it lunch at The Blue Pelican. From the team behind The Rose, it looks, from the seafront, like it ought to be selling fish and chips, and instead serves some of the most exciting Japanese-inspired seafood on the south coast. Grace Dent has written about it, and the meal is worth a trip from London in itself!
Book a counter seat if you can (we’re huge fans of sitting next to open kitchens). On our visit, a single chef worked the whole pass, calm and unhurried, and watching each plate come together a few feet away was half the pleasure.
The food was, simply, incredible. A deep and rich seafood broth to start. Hamachi tataki, lightly torched and melts in your mouth. Crab croquettes that vanished far too quickly. Then the two main dishes, which we are still thinking about: a hamachi collar dressed in la-yu chilli oil and a hen-of-the-woods donabe. The meal was bold, full of flavour and all of the produce was cooked to perfection with real care.
Read our full review of the Blue Pelican here (coming soon)
If you can't get a table at The Blue Pelican, The Rose is the next best thing, and arguably the place to build your whole trip around. One of Deal's oldest establishments, The Rose has been at the heart of the town for over 200 years, and the team behind it also own The Blue Pelican. The restaurant runs a daily menu built around what the Kent coast lands and grows, and the rooms are beautifully put together, reflecting the owners' background in design. Both spaces share the same considered aesthetic: thoughtful, unpretentious, and very easy to settle into.
Next time we come to Deal, we will be staying overnight and booking a room at The Rose. They also have The Pelican Rooms, a dedicated yoga and treatment space where you can book massages and wellness sessions, which makes the whole thing feel less like a quick weekend away and more like a proper reset.
If you are after something a little more casual, Jenkins and Son is a fourth-generation fishmonger (the only one left in Deal) on the high street with a food counter alongside the shop. They are committed to fresh, local, sustainable, line-caught and day-boat fish, sourced from fishing boats that land their catch on the same day, and some of that catch comes directly from the anglers you will have just watched on the pier. You can pick up fresh fish to take home, or eat on the spot: oysters, shellfish, and a seafood boil that sounds like exactly the right thing to eat by the sea. We were too full this time, but it is near the top of the list for the next trip if you want to tap into the seaside spirit and eat seafood in a more relaxed setting.
Drinks by the sea
For drinks, you have plenty of options. The Kings Headis a four-hundred-year-old pub and guesthouse on the seafront and hard to beat for a pint with a view, with outdoor seating that looks straight out to sea. When we visited, there was an outdoor barbecue set up in the seating area serving jerk prawns that smelled absolutely incredible. We aren’t sure if that is a permanent fixture, but we very much hope it is there when we come back.
If you are after something a little more relaxed and wine-focused, Le Pinardier is a French-leaning natural wine bar in the old town that recently expanded along the high street. Or head to The Rose for cocktails, which came highly recommended to us and are now firmly on the list for next time.
Deal surprised us, and we do not surprise easily when it comes to a day out on the Kent coast. It has everything you want from a seaside town without any of the carnage: no arcades, busyness and manic rush. The food scene alone is worth the drive, and the combination of good coffee, exceptional seafood, a proper fishmonger, natural wine and a four-hundred-year-old pub with a sea view makes for a very hard day to fault.
We will be back, and next time we are staying overnight. If you are in south London and find yourself with a free Saturday and a bit of sunshine, Deal is the answer. Just make sure you book The Blue Pelican before you leave the house.
Alice and Zi
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