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The Morning Cuppa: Ocean Bleu
Posted on August 13, 2024
Tuesday, 13 August 2025:
What’s that Law & Order strain? Dun-dun!
1 week to kick off. Can’t believe it. After near two years we’re on our way to Folkestone. No Barcelona airport duty-free madness as is usual for us, but by traveling through Girona to Gatwick we cut down our travel time by car considerably.
The Ocean Blue bar as it is now. Photo taken from the hotel website.
I thought to take a moment and spare a few words on what is now known as the Ocean Bleu Bar & Restaurant at the Hotel Clifton. It’s one of several locations within the storied hotel I adore. Setting is an all important ingredient to a story. When used properly it’s equally powerful as plot and character. Setting is of equal importance in life as well. Authors relate — if not use outright — locales familiar to them, both physically and emotionally. One such locale I visit numerous times in “The Gift” is The Clifton Hotel, and in particular what is now the Ocean Bleu Bar, previously the lounge. It has an enviable view over the English Channel. And it’s the setting for Commodore Wimbourne’s wartime office during the Battle of Britain in Book 2.
The original lounge in 2007.
Prior to 2015 the lounge was frumpy and tired yet utterly comfortable, remaining much as it was during wartime. Until 2015 it retained its period charm and is since 2003 where I take a late lunch of sandwiches with crisps when the dining room is no longer serving. The view of the Leas is lovely and the sunlight over the English Channel to France something to witness.
Although extensively altered, the Ocean Bleu retains many of the lounge’s original features. The bay windows are identical, and most of the original crown molding preserved as well as the rooms period fireplaces. The largest change is the bar located at the far end of the room which disguises the second fireplace. Ho hum. Can’t have everything.
The original location of the long bar in 2006.
The original bar was located elsewhere in the hotel facing Clifton Gardens Road. It was a traditional long bar styled pub, a comfy place to take a drink and I did so on many an occasion with the lads. It catered exclusively to the pensioner crowd in their tweed hacking jackets drinking shandies and lager & lime.
That’s all gone, replaced by a polished and stylish bar with something the previous incarnation never offered. Its own menu. Although not as extravagant as the Marco Pierre White Steakhouse, it serves a delightful
Euro socializing in the old long bar at Euro 2006.
lunch and dinner on short notice, never mind a full bar with capable bartenders.
A marvelous chicken club with chips.
You’d be hard pressed to enjoy anywhere else more than Folkestone and The Clifton. For me, a plate of cheese and pickle, prawn Marie Rose
The lounge area of the original long bar in its original location facing Clifton Gardens Road
and ham and brie sandwiches with a plate of crisps on demand is the height of civility. In an ever complicating world, hotels such as The Clifton offer me refuge. The perfect morning coffee can be procured from the in-house Costa Coffee and brought to your table on the terrace where you may sit and watch Saturday morning runners go along The Leas these days.
Where Daiana & I sit in the window taking in the Channel breeze and sunshine over a late lunch in the Ocean Bleu
It’s a long way from where it all started for me in
The corner table occupied by a cadre of miniature modeling talent 2008.
2003 when I first visited Folkestone, sitting on that same terrace outside The Clifton with a bold coffee and a morning cigarette, greeting familiar faces passing before me on their way to The Leas Cliff Hall for Euro Militaire.
The concorso is gone. And with it those familiar faces, but the memory of it remains as life carries on.
The Journey is Everything.
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