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The Morning Cuppa…Ocean Bleu

Posted on August 13, 2024

Tuesday, 13 August:

What’s that Law & Order strain? Dun-dun!

We’re under the guns. So to speak. 

1 week to kick off. I can’t believe it. After nearly two years we’re on our way back 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. 

I thought I’d take a moment 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 known as The Lounge. It has an enviable view over the English Channel. And during the Battle of Britain it was the setting for Commodore Wimbourne’s wartime office. 

The Lounge before 2015 was frumpy and tired but utterly comfortable, remaining very much as it was since wartime. Until 2015 it retained its period charm and is the place since 2003 I take my late lunch of sandwiches with crisps when the dining room is no longer serving. The view of the Leas is to be admired and the sunlight over the English Channel something to be witnessed at least once. 

Although extensively altered, the Ocean Bleu retains many of the hotel’s original features. The bay windows are identical, and most of its original crown molding preserved as well as the rooms two period fireplaces. The largest change is the bar located at the far end which now disguises the second original — yet in disuse — fireplace. Ho hum. Can’t have everything, I suppose. 

The original hotel 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 almost exclusively catered 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

lunch and dinner on short notice, never mind a full bar with capable bartenders.

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

and ham and brie sandwiches with a plate of crisps on demand is the height of civilization. In an ever complicating world, hotels such as The Clifton offer refuge. A 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. 

It’s a long way from where it started for me in

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.