It’s not a typical evening being served six dishes, six drinks and six neat pours of gin in succession, but that said, celebrating my birthday at The Counter in Tunbridge Wells was far from typical. Collaboration was the mood of the night, the restaurant on this occasion joining forces with Morpeth’s Hepple Spirits, whose triple-distilled gins (the only distillers in the world to use this painstaking method) were paired, mixed and poured with each course. On paper, this may well sound like a short walk to chaos, but in practice, I woke the next morning surprisingly clear-headed – a nod to Hepple’s crystal-clean spirit, yes, but even more to Robin Read’s cookery, which anchored each sip with food so precise, delicious and accomplished that every bite was entirely memorable. BY POLLY HUMPHRIS

The Counter itself reflects Read’s clear foodie philosophy. Cutting its teeth via a series of successful pop-ups, his vision is now a permanent fixture on Tunbridge Wells’ leafy streets and has the feel of somewhere contemporary but unpretentious, with just enough edge to add excitement. Open since June last year, there’s a certain energy about being the newest kid in a town full of polished brasseries and safer crowd-pleasers; The Counter doesn’t blend in, and nor does it try to. 

Based in a restored historic Georgian structure that’s home not only to the navy blue, modernist main dining area (with both table and counter seating), but also to a private dining room, a cosy, speakeasy-style wine bar and a courtyard garden adorned with raised beds and pots cultivating a variety of herbs, salads and brassicas, inside, pale walls are punctuated by bold, abstract canvases by Venezuelan artist RAA (a close friend of Robin and his former sous chef) that bring colour and intrigue without crowding the space. 

Throughout the space, rustic floorboards creak softly underfoot, giving the room a grounded, lived-in warmth, while high ceilings painted a moody black create intimacy as they lift the eye upwards. Lighting is set deliberately low but golden – flattering and focused but never theatrical, it’s a stripped back, self-assured room without any unnecessary fluff and it’s all the more striking for it.

Robin Read
Image by: Stuart Mack

Less about showboating and more about extraction-from-essence, The Counter’s personality lies in choice and detail; a natural evolution from Read’s earlier days cooking in temporary kitchens where every decision had to matter, perhaps. His industry pedigree is irrefutably impressive, including craft-honing stints alongside the Roux brothers, Nico Ladenis and Marco Pierre White (to name but three), and it’s these more classical years combined with the more transient pop-up years that’s forged the approach that underpins his food: precise and never wasteful, but always inventive. You sense it in the way dishes arrive without flourish or fanfare, and then reveal themselves slowly, mouthful by mouthful, until you realise how much has been packed into something that looks deceptively simple.

Our first course – a scattering of chervil, nori, fennel, salty fingers around a rose of kohlrabi over a slick of extra virgin olive oil – proved this. It was understated to the eye, but brimming with resonance from peppery heat, a saline crunch from the sea herbs and a cool herbal lift from the juicy kohlrabi. Each mouthful felt cleansing, like a reset button for the palate, and the accompanying cocktail – light and crisp with botanical brightness – chimed rather than clashed.

A personal favourite, the second course was monkfish – taut, fleshy and sweet, dressed with Douglas fir oil over a ragu of celeriac and globe artichoke. The fir, both in the oil and in the gin, brought a herbal, citrussy quality to the dish, grounding the fish in something deeper, which it transpired was notes of tropical fruit peeking through – a subtlety that comes from Hepple’s unusual use of pine needles in distillation. The result was a collaboration of woodland notes and shoreline sweetness, citrus and cream – each distinct, but of course designed to work together.

The cod that followed was, in my humble opinion, the purest statement of Read’s style. North Sea cod, dusted in dried seaweed, arrived gleaming and moist. Toasted barley gave crunch, cauliflower purée was silky and comforting, and a dark lovage orzotto tied everything together with celery-like sharpness and parsley backnotes that added just enough bitterness to balance it all out. The drink served alongside the course – a flinty Pouilly Fumé with grapefruit aromas – echoed those herbaceous notes and freshened the edges, allowing the cod to sing even more sweetly.

If the fish courses showcased Read’s lighter hand, the venison played to his depth. From a heritage estate and shot only a week earlier, the meat was paired with cep purée, foraged ceps and beetroot, its earthiness scented with juniper in a nod to gin that was deliberate, but not heavy-handed. Juniper itself is patient – taking 15 years to establish its sex, with only the female plants producing the prized berries – and the dish seemed to carry that same sense of time and care. The venison was butter-soft and the ceps had infused their woodland musk into the meat, which was lifted by a beetroot sweetness as mineral as it was floral.

By the time dessert appeared, the mood had shifted. This was less about restraint and more about a soft exhale – a moment to give into the sweet finale that followed. In this dish, simply named ‘blackcurrant leaf’, the first of autumn’s fallen apples had been transformed into a slow-cooked apple butter based on an old English recipe, its caramelised depth checked by the tart pop of sweet-pickled blackcurrants. It tasted of hedgerows and childhood memories of bramble-stained fingertips and freedom – and you can’t beat a bit of nostalgia, especially on your birthday. Lastly, the ‘tower of sweet treats’ arrived – decadent fudge, canelés and miniature chocolates stacked like treasures in a nest of boxes – a playful flourish at the end of a meal that had otherwise leaned towards the composed and considered.

Throughout the evening, the pairing of gin with fine dining was unexpected and clever, but what impressed most was the philosophy that underpinned everything. Read treats herbs as central voices, not decorative afterthoughts. He knows ingredients taste better when placed in conversation with the wild and the local. He understands patience, but also when to let flavour speak boldly – and, crucially, he allows every dish to let its own personality shine, rather than slotting into a more curated formula.

Read’s original vision was that of a modern-day restaurant, responsible and sustainable, with seasonal cooking, few food miles and using every part of an ingredient. And this is exactly what he’s achieved.

By seeking out and nurturing a strong network of small, independent farmers, growers and producers from farm to sea, and taking great care and pride to meet his suppliers and visit their sources across the country, he has ensured first-hand knowledge of the produce, relationships with the people whose hands create, grow, or farm them. 

That is what gives The Counter that elusive edge. It doesn’t rely on gimmicks, but instead has an identity that’s found in understatement – Read is a chef with patience and punch in equal measure, whose food is rooted firmly in Kent but pitched to a contemporary creativity.

Six dishes, six drinks and six neat pours of gin should have been my undoing, buu instead, I left – admittedly with a slightly more springier step, but satisfied and inspired, too. That’s not just good gin, that’s great cooking. For Tunbridge Wells, The Counter may be a newer addition on the block, but with this kind of edge and clarity, it already feels like it belongs – not as a novelty, but as a place you’ll want to return to to see what they get up to next. 

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