The Wellington, originally a Victorian coaching inn on the market square in Margate Old Town, has been sensitively spruced up by Billy Stock and Ellie Topham. They have retained a classic pub area for those who just want a pint of draught Guinness or Meteor but there’s also a relaxed dining room serving what they describe as “seasonal British food with a French touch”.
Chef Billy Stock’s CV includes stints in London at St John and the Marksman in Hackney, before becoming chef-landlord of the Rose Inn in Wickhambreaux near Canterbury and head chef at Margate favourite Sète (where the open kitchen is unbelievably even smaller than the one at The Wellington). Ellie Topham has an equally impressive front of house and managerial background, with experience at Soho House, Kym’s by Andrew Wong and Updown Farmhouse; she was also GM at Barletta at Turner Contemporary, which was co-owned by Natalia Ribbe who now owns and runs Sète (hospitality is a small world).
It very much feels like a wholly unpretentious, much-loved local dining spot
I’m currently dividing my time between London and Margate so have eaten at The Wellington on several occasions, including for Sunday lunch and for snacks from the bar menu. Highlights from the latter include the Welsh rarebit; assertively, unapologetically savoury, it arrives with a bottle of Worcester sauce for tableside tweaks à la St John. I also recommend the bacon Scotch egg with its requisite light crispy crumb, salty, porky centre and jammy yolk.
The scallop toast, also available as a starter on the dining room menu, is a don’t-miss dish. It is served with light pickles and a tasty scallop roe emulsion, proving that no-waste philosophy brings good karma. Similarly on both menus is a plate of snail and Bayonne ham croquettes, the garlicky, silky centre studded with little nuggets of French umami, served on a vividly green pool of lovage emulsion. I still need to try the duck sausage roll and the beef ribs, both of which sound like they may be almost a meal in themselves.
Scallop toast
Roast beef
Chicken pie
The Sunday lunch is everything you would expect from a chef with St John and Marksman pedigree: generous, traditional and unfussy. On my visit the choice was beef or pork, served with roast potatoes, roasted and puréed carrots, buttered greens, Yorkshire pudding and gravy. Philistines can opt to add cauliflower cheese as a side, and right-thinking folk can level up their Sunday with a portion of pigs in blankets, which you shouldn’t need reminding are for life, not just for Christmas. If roast meats aren’t your thing there is also a fish and a veggie option, or there’s always the pie.
Ah, the pie. A really good buttery, flaky pastry lid, baked crisp, covering a piping hot and generous filling of, in this case, chicken and leek. Sizeable chunks of tender white meat in a creamy sauce with meltingly soft leeks – this is emphatically not the place for any hint of resistance – resulted in a dish that lives up to all your nostalgic fantasies. Upon cutting into the pie, expect the table to be littered with tiny golden shards. Later these can be idly, almost unconsciously, retrieved with a dampened fingertip, one by one, while you are deep in conversation.
The daily menu features some excellent fish cookery; as a rule of thumb, should you spot anything that includes the word ‘bisque’ then order it immediately. Service from the small team is charming, knowledgeable, relaxed and personal in the best sense, as if you are a guest at a family dinner. It very much feels like a wholly unpretentious, much-loved local dining spot, which is their stated aim but a notoriously difficult goal; at The Wellington, they’ve absolutely nailed it.
1 Duke Street
Margate
Kent
CT9 1EP
June 2026
