Getting pickled by the beach

On the Kent coast, overlooking a sunset painted by Turner, you can tuck into a exceptional serving of salt beef. But it is not salt beef as we know it. Jason Freedman, chef-proprietor of The Minnis eschews brisket in favour of the finer-textured rib, and cooks it for hours at low temperature in a water bath rather than the long boil that bubbe would have administered. And then - shock horror - he cuts all the fat off before serving it.

This break from tradition is down to the fact that The Minnis is a fine dining restaurant rather than a deli, and that, although Jason had a traditional Jewish upbringing, the salt beef and pickled herring he makes for his diners were not part of his childhood heritage: "My mother made latkes, fish balls and chopped liver, but my interest in curing and pickling foods was stimulated by that done by the Romans who used to live round here," explains the self-taught chef who came up the hard way, through kitchen portering
rather than catering college.

Minnis Bay sits between the old Roman settlement of Reculver, and Birchington-on-Sea, a genteel village to which many former residents of the popular Jewish community of Cliftonville moved out as the seaside resort gradually ran down over the past 20 or 30 years.

There is still a small Jewish community in nearby Margate, which has been revitalised by the new Turner Contemporary. After nearly a decade at the beach - including a devastating fire, which burned down the kitchen two years ago to the month - Freedman's business is booming.