A restoration project is now a must-stop destination in Canterbury, England. Find out how it all happened and what to expect when you go to The Goods Shed Restaurant with writer Julie Hatfield. 

Exterior of The Goods Shed, with a train track underneath it! 

Get the goods at The Goods Shed

A river runs through Missoula, Montana but a train runs through a restaurant in Canterbury, England.

At least it used to. Trains ran right through a shed at the Canterbury train station, offloading supplies for the town from 1880 to the late 1950’s, until the shed deteriorated and sat unloved for years in a derelict state. Finally, 18 years ago, a local townswoman, Susanna Sait, who had restored an old department of education building and run it as a communal home, and had also run a café, decided it was time to bring the unassuming-looking shed back to life. She planned and worked for six months to make it into both a marketplace for the great vegetables that grew in Kent County (an area referred to as The Garden of England), and as a butchery for local meats and game, a bakery for fresh breads and pastries, and a restaurant to present it all for breakfast, lunch and dinner, Tuesday through Sunday.

Sait put a floor over the railroad track and opened the restaurant another floor up from the enormous food market. “The restaurant was all about recreating my mother’s kitchen table where food came from the local butcher and the vegetable garden,” she said. “I am a farmer’s daughter and passionate about farming, passionate about independent business and about people being their own boss in a world increasingly dominated by big business. Farmers need an alternative choice for a platform for their produce that isn’t dominated by the supermarkets and their demands and where varieties can be chosen for flavor rather than shelf life and shape. I’m passionate about fading skills: bottling, preserving, using the whole food, butter making, yogurt, sweet making, etc. I’m passionate about nutrition and firmly believe that food from small scale farming methods and local farms must be more nutritious than food stored and traveled for weeks before getting to the consumer.”

The sunny upstairs at The Goods Shed.

Her passion shows in the look and taste of the foods that are presented here in the market and the restaurant both. The Goods Shed is celebrating its 18th anniversary with descriptions of its wonderful food as “gastro porn” and diners raving about its fresh greens in season including watercress, wild garlic, sorrel, chicory and yes, weeds! One menu recently included an appetizer of tempura goose grass, which might upset a landscaper hoping for perfect lawns, but a diner consuming this weed is said to receive Vitamin C, treatment for scurvy, anti-inflammatory qualities and help for respiratory problems including coughs, asthma, flu and the common cold.

Purple sprouting broccoli, smoked Hollandaise and almonds, at The Goods Shed, Canterbury England.

All of the greens, weeds, vegetables and such are locally sourced from under 12 miles. And the deer, partridge, guinea fowl, quail, and other meats are also local. The restaurant likes to boast that because of the food market downstairs, most of the ingredients in your meal are roughly sourced from two feet away. A forager exclusive to the Shed goes out to find wild edibles such as mushrooms, flowers, roots and those weeds. Manager Jim Robinson prides himself on the farm-to-table ethic, which when it’s market-to-table, is even fresher for those who enjoy a meal here. On a recent Friday supper, skate and hake fish had been caught that morning in the North Sea and brought to the restaurant in a matter of hours.

Confit Duck Leg from The Goods Shed. 

Main courses range in price from $19 to $25; a starter of April salad with crisp poached egg is $8.50; a glass of vintage port is $8.50 and a dessert of chocolate brownie with chocolate “soil,” honeycomb and crème fraiche, is $9.

The Goods Shed is one of the British restaurants connected to a large-scale collaboration between 13 destinations in the UK led by Destination Plymouth, showcasing cultural and historical connections between the US and the UK.  Another of them is the celebration of the 400^th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower from Plymouth, England, which will be observed in 2020. The website for US Connections and Destination Plymouth is https://trade.visitbritain.com/destination-uk/discover-england-fund/connections/.

To learn more about The Goods Shed, visit their website.

— Story by Julie Hatfield. Photos by Jerome Dutton.

Hungry for more? Read about another stop Julie made in England, for tea. And go on a wild search for Cornish Pasties, here. 

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