Over the years I have found myself becoming more and more sceptical when it comes to the bold claims made by restaurants promising to reinvent, reinterpret, or otherwise produce some kind of twist on a classic. Classics are classics for a reason, mess with them at your peril. Similarly, alarm bells start to sound whenever a menu promises a ‘luxury’ version of a relatively humble dish – be that the hamburger, the pizza or, in this case, the hot dog.
The cynic in me instantly assumes the ‘luxury’ implied here will be the luxury of the proprietor leaving my wallet significantly lighter than it was when I crossed the threshold. Which brings us to the subject of today’s review, The Naughty Dog at Lympne Castle, near Hythe . In 2023, the castle was snapped up by Ann Kaplan Mulholland, a former star of reality TV show Real Housewives of Toronto, and her husband Stephen .
The PR in the lead-up to the launch of their latest venture at the historic estate promised a menu centred around ‘haute dogs’, a fancy spin on the all-American classic. Now, I love a hot dog, I really do. In fact I once devoured four or five in a single afternoon, which sounds appallingly gluttonous, but in my defence they were $1 a throw at a minor league hockey game in the States – I was not going to turn down value like that, no sir.
Frankfurter, pillowy white bun, splash of ketchup and mustard, liberal sprinkling of onions – as I say: classic, perfect and extremely moreish. So I rolled up to.