Samy Gicqueau

In 2001, Matthew Forte voted La Terrasse, at Samy and Zara Gicqueau's Sandgate Hotel in Folkestone, his Guardian Restaurant of the Year. It's not hard to guess why this no-nonsense food critic selected it - Gicqueau produces dishes that have been stripped of any inessentials.

He says he is cooking for a slightly conservative Folkestone constituency, that his style is responding to the local demand. In fact, it's what the dining-out public wants - "cuisine soignée", without edible distractions, the kind of food that Conran Restaurants, for example, would love to serve if it were catering for 20 customers rather than 2,000.

Gicqueau, a former pastry sous-chef from Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, opened his seven-table restaurant in 1995 and won a Michelin star inside two years. Looking back, he says that he would have loved to open a fish restaurant, but doesn't think the location can support it.

That doesn't mean that the quality of supply isn't immaculate. He buys from small dayboats which bring him wild bass, turbot, brill, red mullet, crab, lobster and, of course, Dover soles.