Margate, GB

A small, sharply run wine bar and restaurant in a former boat shed on the Harbour Arm, doing seasonal Mediterranean small plates with a focus on local seafood and natural wines. It has arguably the best sea view of any table in town. Best for sunset small plates and a glass of something orange.

A tiny, ethically sourced seafood restaurant near the harbour that locals and critics agree is the best fish kitchen in town, with a daily-changing menu of whatever the boats brought in. Booking weeks ahead is essential. Best for a focused seafood dinner with a short, smart wine list.

The walk-in seafood bar from the Angela's team on the High Street, with a marble counter and a short, daily-changing list of whatever's fresh, raw and cooked. It's the easier way to eat the team's food without the wait. Best for a counter lunch of oysters, ceviche, and a glass of wine.

Chef Simona's handmade-pasta restaurant in the Old Town, rooted in her family's southern Italian traditions from Molise, in a small dining room of about half a dozen tables. It's a Michelin Plate spot and tables release sixty days in advance. Best for handmade pasta and a long, slow Italian dinner.

A bohemian seafood-leaning restaurant on King Street with a downstairs gallery, doing East and Southeast Asian-inflected small plates and a serious natural wine list in a dim, candle-lit room. Tables are few and the vibe is in-the-know. Best for an inventive Asian-fusion dinner with adventurous wines.

Natalia Ribbe's small Cliftonville wine bar with a tiny back-room restaurant serving a blackboard menu of seasonal European small plates, paired with a short, sharply chosen natural and classic French wine list. It's neighbourhood scale and a locals favourite. Best for a slow wine-bar dinner away from the seafront crowds.

The open-kitchen restaurant inside the No.42 by GuestHouse hotel on Marine Drive, doing wood-fired meats, salt-aged steaks, and Whitstable oysters in a slick room with a beach view. It's the dressier seafront option in town. Best for a steak-and-oysters dinner with a sea-view aperitif beforehand.

A small Cliff Terrace cafe between Old Town and Cliftonville serving inventive brunch, signature sticky Korean fried chicken in focaccia, strong coffee, and an in-house bakery. It's the local brunch headline. Best for a weekend brunch of the Korean chicken sandwich and a flat white.

A tiny Scandi-style coffee bar on the Harbour Arm with Allpress espresso, open Swedish sandwiches, and cinnamon buns, all served from a few outdoor tables looking over the sands. It's the morning coffee stop. Best for a flat white and a cardamom bun before a Harbour Arm walk.

A flint-walled 18th-century pub-restaurant on Broadstairs Harbour with the upstairs dining room looking straight over Viking Bay, doing classic British seafood that's been a Kent institution for decades. Downstairs is a proper local pub. Best for a sea-view fish-and-chips lunch or a Sunday seafood lunch upstairs.

A small modern seafood bar above Viking Bay in Broadstairs doing Mediterranean-influenced sharing plates of locally landed fish, with a short, well-built wine list. Michelin Guide-recommended and a Kent Life Food Award winner. Best for a relaxed seafood lunch with a sea view.

Swedish chef Tomas Eriksson's 20-seat Basque-leaning small-plates bar in Broadstairs, drawing on his Soho House years for a tightly written seasonal menu and natural wines on tap. It earned the highest guest rating on OpenTable's UK Top 100 list. Best for a counter dinner of small plates and a long natural wine flight.

A 6-mile clifftop section of the Viking Coastal Trail from Margate's seafront along the chalk cliffs past Walpole Bay, Botany Bay, Kingsgate, and Joss Bay into Broadstairs. It's one of the best coast walks in the southeast and almost entirely traffic-free. Best for a half-day walk with a pub or seafood lunch at the Broadstairs end.

A short clifftop stretch between Botany Bay and Kingsgate Bay taking in the most dramatic chalk stacks and the sea arch at Kingsgate, with steps down to both beaches at either end. It's the highlight half-mile of the whole Thanet coast. Best for an hour-long walk between two of the prettiest bays.

A flat seafront promenade walk along the Cliftonville cliffs from Margate Old Town past the Walpole Bay tidal pool, with steps down to the sand and a quiet stretch the day-trippers usually miss. It's the easy local stroll. Best for a flat, accessible coastal walk with a tidal-pool dip in the middle.

The 32-mile circular coastal route around the Isle of Thanet, mostly traffic-free on promenade and sea wall, taking in Margate, Broadstairs, Ramsgate, and the inland villages. The full loop is a long day on a bike or a multi-day walk. Best as a cycle from Margate, with bike hire available in town.

A 5-mile section of the Viking Coastal Trail south from Broadstairs's Viking Bay past Dumpton Gap and along the cliffs into Ramsgate's Royal Harbour, finishing at the marina arches. It's the quieter half of the Thanet coast walk. Best for a half-day walk ending with lunch in Ramsgate.

The restored seafront amusement park with vintage rides, a roller disco, an outdoor stage that pulls major touring acts in summer, and the listed wooden Scenic Railway nearby. Entry is free; you pay for rides and gig tickets. Best for a sunny afternoon of rides or a summer evening gig under the lights.

Europe's only museum dedicated to crabs, on the Harbour Arm, a small but pointedly funny and political institution that uses crustaceans as a lens for everything from biology to capitalism. Entry is free and donations welcome. Best for an offbeat half-hour as part of a Harbour Arm walk.

A 45-seat theatre built in a Victorian coach house in Cliftonville, claiming to be one of the smallest in the world, with a year-round programme of cabaret, comedy, drag, music, and short plays. The pre-show bar is half the appeal. Best for a tiny-room cabaret or drag night you'd be hard pushed to find anywhere else.

A subterranean Georgian chalk mine restored as a small museum, with carved walls and painted murals from its years as a gentleman's folly and a Victorian tourist attraction. The cafe and garden above are a quiet local spot. Best for a 45-minute self-guided visit and a coffee in the garden after.

A genuinely odd Victorian explorer's museum in Birchington showing Major Powell-Cotton's African and Asian collections in their original dioramas, alongside Quex House and a working estate with gardens. The dioramas are extraordinary and the museum has been reinterpreted with modern context. Best for a half-day trip with house, museum, and gardens combined.

An independent seafront cocktail bar on Marine Drive with a giant disco ball, resident weekend DJs, and a long list of cocktails and gins. It's a regular fixture of the Margate going-out scene. Best for late-night cocktails and a dance after dinner.

A genuinely ancient-looking Old Town micropub with sawdust on the floor, barrels for tables, and a rotating chalkboard of cask ales and Kentish ciders. There's no proper kitchen, just pies and snacks; this is a drinking pub of the old school. Best for a slow pint of something local and a chat with whoever's at the bar.

A natural wine bar, cocktail spot, and bottle shop on the seafront just east of the harbour, with a first-floor bar window that's one of the best sunset perches in town. The food is cheese and charcuterie boards. Best for a sunset glass of natural wine before dinner.

David Chipperfield's six-volume seafront gallery is the engine of Margate's revival, with rotating contemporary shows and one of the best sea-light views from any museum window in Britain. Entry is free and the building itself, raised on a plinth above the sands, is the headline architecture in town. Best for an hour with whatever is on, then a coffee at the cafe overlooking the harbour.

The tangle of streets and squares behind the harbour, packed with vintage shops, independent galleries, natural wine bars, and the small restaurants doing the town's most interesting cooking. It's where Margate's creative reinvention is densest. Best for an afternoon of pottering between shops and ducking into a wine bar at dusk.

A subterranean passage and chamber covered floor-to-ceiling in 4.6 million shells arranged in mosaics, discovered in 1835 and still completely unexplained. Nobody knows who built it or when. It's small, strange, and unforgettable, and the entry fee is a few pounds. Best for half an hour of staring at the patterns and reading the theories.

The 1815 stone breakwater curves out into the sea with a stubby 1955 lighthouse at its tip, now lined with cafes, the Crab Museum, and Sargasso restaurant. It's the classic Margate walk and the harbour-and-lighthouse view appears on the Bank of England twenty-pound note. Best for a sunset stroll along the arm with a drink at the end.

The UK's largest tidal pool, a four-acre 1937 lido built into the shore at Cliftonville that fills with the tide and empties for hours of safe sea-swimming. It's Grade II listed and stays usable year-round if you're brave enough. Best for a morning dip and a walk along the chalk reef when the tide is out.

Chalk stacks and white cliffs ring this sandy bay east of Margate, one of the most photogenic stretches on the Thanet coast and quieter than the main town beach. Smugglers used to land here, hence the name. Best for a low-tide walk around the stacks and a swim from the sand.

A small chalk-cliff bay between Botany Bay and Broadstairs with a dramatic natural sea arch and the mock-medieval Kingsgate Castle perched on the headland above. It's smaller and quieter than its neighbours. Best for a short walk from Botany Bay to see the arch up close.

The Grade II listed clifftop house in Broadstairs where Dickens spent summers writing David Copperfield, named for the later novel he may or may not have set in mind here. It's privately owned again and not open inside, but the position above Viking Bay is the point. Best as a stop on the Broadstairs clifftop walk for the exterior and the view.

Britain's only royal harbour, a Regency yacht marina ringed by Georgian arches, fish stalls, and continental-feeling cafes that make Ramsgate feel like a small Mediterranean port stranded on the Kent coast. It's a different mood to Margate, quieter and more handsome. Best for a slow afternoon along the arches and an early dinner on the harbourfront.