Where to Eat by the River in Canterbury: Wood-Fired Pizza and Mediterranean Cooking at Café du Soleil
Café du Soleil has one advantage most restaurants would happily build an entire identity around: a handsome old wool store leaning towards the River Stour, reached across its own little bridge and backed by a waterside terrace. Fortunately, the kitchen has more to say than the building.
The restaurant opened in 2010 inside Canterbury’s historic Woolstore, a structure dating from the 1820s and standing on foundations connected with the medieval city wall. Reclaimed flint, ragstone and old oak beams give the interior a patina that cannot be reproduced with a mood board. The riverside terrace does the rest when the weather cooperates.
The food is broadly Mediterranean rather than obediently Italian or French. A wood-fired oven provides the recurring thread, but the menu is cheerfully promiscuous: ’nduja pizza, Provençal hake, chicken saltimbocca, pork belly with kimchi, aubergine gratin and Basque cheesecake all appear without requiring a passport check.
That looseness could easily become incoherent. Here, the better dishes are held together by a fondness for smoke, roasting, acidity and bold seasoning.
The Wood-Fired Oven Gives the Menu Its Pulse
The oven matters because it appears across the menu rather than being reserved for pizza.
Focaccia comes blistered and fragrant; vegetables pick up caramelised edges; Sunday roasts gain a deeper crust; fish benefits from concentrated heat that cooks quickly without draining the flesh of moisture.
That gives Café du Soleil a recognisable cooking signature even when the dishes travel from Calabria to Provence and then suddenly take a detour through Asia.
The restaurant feels most convincing when that fire is allowed to simplify rather than embellish.
Crispy Calamari Has More Bite Than the Standard Pub Version
The crispy calamari salad, priced at £12.75, arrives with chilli-ginger vinaigrette, cucumber, rocket and radish.
The important element is acidity. Fried calamari can become tiring after four mouthfuls if everything around it is mayonnaise and salt. Here cucumber and radish keep the plate crisp, while ginger and chilli add enough heat to wake up the coating.
It is still comfort food, but with sharper elbows.
For something richer, the aubergine gratin at £10.50 layers Parmesan, mozzarella and smoked scamorza with tomato and basil. It is molten, smoky and deliberately unashamed of cheese.
The Nduja Pizza Is the One to Order First
The ’nduja pizza, at £18.50, combines spicy Calabrian sausage, salami, ricotta, mozzarella and tomato.
This is not a minimalist Neapolitan exercise. It is generous, fatty and hot, but ricotta performs an important corrective role, softening the chilli and giving the palate somewhere cooler to land.
The base is cooked in the wood-fired oven, with enough blistering and char to prevent the toppings from turning the whole thing into a soft red-and-white blanket.
The Napoletana, at £16, is the more revealing test of dough and oven: tomato, fresh mozzarella, extra-virgin olive oil and basil, with nowhere for mistakes to hide.
For two people, the larger pizzas can be ordered half-and-half, which is a useful way to compare something restrained with one of the heavier combinations.
Wood-Roast Hake Provençale Is the Most Mediterranean Main Course
The wood-roast hake Provençale, priced at £28.50, is the dish that best connects the restaurant’s setting, oven and Mediterranean leanings.
The hake loin comes with green olives, artichokes and tomatoes, alongside three-cheese potato cakes and garlic greens.
Hake is delicate enough to suffer from overcomplication, but olives and artichokes bring salinity and bitterness rather than weight. Tomato provides acidity; the potato cake adds richness without requiring a butter-heavy sauce.
The plate is generous, but the fish remains clearly in charge.
Pork Belly Takes a Sharp Turn East
The slow-roast pork belly, at £27.50, is much less geographically tidy.
Black-bean glaze, sticky shiitake rice, spicy kimchi, greens, sake-and-pork jus and five-spice crackling push the dish firmly away from the Mediterranean.
Yet it has a certain logic. Pork belly needs acidity and spice, and kimchi provides both. Black bean adds fermented depth, while the crackling supplies the hard, noisy contrast that slow-cooked pork requires.
This is the sort of plate that tells you Café du Soleil is not interested in culinary border control.
Whether that freedom appeals will depend on what you expect from dinner, but the dish has more personality than another anonymous pork belly with apple purée.
Chicken Saltimbocca Brings the Menu Back to Familiar Ground
The chicken saltimbocca, priced at £27.50, is closer to the restaurant’s Mediterranean centre.
Chicken breast, pancetta and sage are served with leek-and-tarragon cream, three-cheese mash and sautéed vegetables.
It is richer than a classical saltimbocca and more obviously designed as a complete restaurant main course, but the core combination remains persuasive: sage cuts through the meat, pancetta adds salt and the mash provides comfort without pretending to be elegant.
This is the safest choice for anyone who finds the pork belly’s kimchi excursion a bridge too far.
Wine Pairings
Crispy calamari: Valminor Albariño, Rías Baixas — saline and citrus-driven, ideal with chilli and fried seafood.
Wood-roast hake: Château du Poyet Muscadet — lean, mineral and quietly precise with olives and fish.
Pork belly: Rob Dolan White Label Pinot Noir — supple red fruit and freshness against five-spice and kimchi.
Sunday Roast Is One of the Restaurant’s Cleverest Ideas
Every Sunday from 12:00 to 5:00 pm, the oven turns towards a Tuscan-style roast at £20.50.
The meat changes from week to week—pork shoulder, lamb, porchetta, beef, duck or chicken—but the accompaniments follow a consistent line: red-wine gravy, olive-oil roast potatoes, garlic greens, confit carrots, Parmesan cauliflower cheese and herb salsa.
It is a generous format, but the herb salsa and olive oil prevent the plate from becoming completely buried under British Sunday-lunch heaviness.
More importantly, it uses the wood-fired oven for something beyond pizza. That gives the roast a real connection to the restaurant rather than treating Sunday lunch as a separate commercial exercise.
Dessert Keeps One Foot in Comfort Food
Desserts cost £9.50, and the selection ranges from sticky toffee pudding to tiramisù and burnt Basque cheesecake.
The burnt Basque cheesecake is the most appealing after fish or pizza. Its deeply browned exterior brings bitterness and caramelisation, while red-fruit compote gives the dense interior the acidity it needs.
The Kentish apple crumble is the more local route, served with toffee cream. It is warmer, sweeter and particularly appropriate when the river terrace has ceased to look inviting.
There is also a dark chocolate and coconut ganache with strawberries, cherries and cherry liqueur for anyone wanting a more polished finish.
The Wine List Has Better Range Than the Casual Format Suggests
The cellar moves comfortably between inexpensive Mediterranean bottles and more ambitious choices.
Whites include Domaine Gayda, Muscadet from Château du Poyet, Gavi di Gavi, Valminor Albariño, Bogle Chardonnay and Sancerre. Reds range from Barbera and Tuscan blends to Rioja Reserva, Valpolicella Ripasso and Chianti Classico Riserva.
Kent also gets proper space: Simpsons Chalklands Classic, Simpsons Canterbury Rose and Gusbourne Blanc de Blancs give the list a welcome local accent.
Bottle prices begin in the mid-£20s and remain mostly sensible, with enough wine available by the glass to avoid committing to one style for the whole meal.
Service, Atmosphere and Prices
Café du Soleil is larger and more animated than an intimate bistro, but the old building breaks the space into enough visual layers to prevent it from feeling like a dining hall.
The riverside terrace is the table to request in good weather. Inside, exposed timber and stone give the restaurant warmth without lapsing into medieval-theme theatrics.
Pricing is straightforward. A crispy calamari starter (£12.75), wood-roast hake (£28.50) and dessert (£9.50) total £50.75 per person before drinks.
Pizza keeps dinner considerably lower: a Napoletana and dessert cost £25.50 before drinks.
The strongest value is the set menu, available all day every day at £24 for two courses or £29 for three. That is unusually useful in central Canterbury, especially for an early dinner or pre-theatre meal.
A discretionary 10% service charge is added to tables of five or more.
Useful Information
- Address: 4–5 Pound Lane, Canterbury, Kent CT1 2BZ
- Location: Beside the River Stour, close to Westgate
- Opened: 2010
- Building: Historic Woolstore dating from the 1820s
- Cuisine: Wood-fired Mediterranean cooking with broader international influences
- Dishes to look for: ’Nduja pizza, crispy calamari, wood-roast hake Provençale, pork belly and Tuscan Sunday roast
- Pizza: Approximately £16–£19.50 for an individual pizza
- Main courses: Approximately £22.50–£37
- Desserts: £9.50
- Set menu: £24 for two courses; £29 for three
- Sunday roast: £20.50
- Opening hours: Daily from 12:00 pm
- Sunday–Thursday closing: 9:30 pm
- Friday–Saturday closing: 10:00 pm
- Telephone: +44 1227 479999
- Email: [email protected]
- Riverside seating: Available
- Vegetarian and vegan dishes: Extensive selection
- Gluten-free options: Dedicated menu available
- Private dining: Upstairs room available for groups
- Best for: Riverside lunch, pizza, Sunday roast and an informal Mediterranean dinner in central Canterbury
Our Rating of Café du Soleil
Food: 8.7/10
Mediterranean at heart, but curious enough to wander without becoming completely unmoored.
Starters: 8.7/10
Crispy calamari and aubergine gratin show two very different but equally confident sides of the kitchen.
Pizza: 8.9/10
The wood-fired oven gives the section real authority, particularly when toppings are kept under control.
Fish: 9/10
The hake Provençale is one of the menu’s most coherent plates.
Meat: 8.6/10
Generous, sometimes adventurous and occasionally more exuberant than necessary.
Vegetarian Cooking: 8.9/10
Far more considered than the token meat-free dishes found on many broad Mediterranean menus.
Desserts: 8.6/10
Comforting rather than delicate, with Basque cheesecake providing the sharpest finish.
Wine List: 8.9/10
Broad, well priced and strengthened by a useful selection of Kent sparkling wines.
Service: 8.8/10
Relaxed and well suited to a restaurant that moves between casual pizza lunches and longer dinners.
Atmosphere: 9.3/10
An old wool store, a bridge over the Stour and a waterside terrace give the restaurant a setting with genuine character.
Value for Money: 9/10
The £24/£29 set menu and £20.50 Sunday roast make the restaurant particularly competitive for central Canterbury.
Overall Rating: 8.9/10
