Ship & Trade

Beautiful food, lovely location and scenery and very friendly staff.
I have eaten/​drank in Ship & Trade many times and I have never been disappointed. It has ample seating indoor and out and the location on the water front makes it an ideal stop for the summer lunch.
Family friendly and extra seating upstairs also. I would definitely recommend reserving a table as it can get very busy, very often which to me, is proof it is loved by the local community.

Disappointing!
We had a choice of booking a night here or the already experienced sterile Holiday Inn. But they only had a twin left, so after some discussion we opted for here as it looked like it had a decent restaurant and made a bed sacrifice.
On arrival however, we were told that the resturant was closed for a private function. This had not been mentioned on the website or booking.
So we were left hovering around in the busy bar section for a table to become free and then have pub grub. No steak knife for my steak, which was okay but nothing special. The bubble and squeak was dry with no cabbage.
Asked for a menu to look at deserts during plate clear up by waitress as we left ours at the bar, but no menu ever arrived. Gave up and went to the co-​op next door.
Also a rum and ginger beer at the bar came as a measure of rum in a glass with bottle of crabbies, to then find they didn’t have any ginger beer. /​sigh
The rooms are kinda fun and quirky; I liked the décor. However there are some big fails here too. For example the good looking bath/​shower has the shower head at a fixed six foot height, so if you are six feet tall it will be touching your head: if taller then you will not fit under it! The alarm clock was off/​not working and the tiny TV had an annoying bright blue led at night.
Noise carried in the hallways and doors are clunky sounding so although the function people were trying to be quiet when they retired to bed, they still managed to keep us awake until the last went into their rooms.
The breakfast was excellent, both the blueberry pancakes and full english but this was not enough to rescue the rating.
On another day maybe this could have reached a 4 star review, but not this trip unfortunately. Shame.

We were in Gillingham (Husband’s family) on and off over three weeks and the eating out options are very very slim. Most of this region has been taken over by Beefeaters or Weatherspoons so we were quite happy to find this little pub on the entrance to St. Mary’s island. We had fish and chips and scampi and they were both delicious. The portion size was perfect. The pints were cold and the outside seating was great. We went here about three times and every time is was consistent and tasty. I also sampled the banoffee mess (a take on eton mess) and it was scrumptious. If you are heading to dockside outlet and want a clean, tasty pub this is it.

I don’t know why this is listed as a «fish and chips» as actually it’s a pub and restaurant (and, we were surprised to find out tonight, a small hotel as well). Anyway we had pre-​cinema dinner in the upstairs restaurant. So how was it? Well it’s a Shepherd Neame establishment, so it’s better than a JD Weatherspoons, but that’s about the best you can say for it. My steak and ale pie with mash was good but not generously filled, and whilst my wife liked the fish of her fish and chips (OK so they do do fish and chips), she was badly let down by the chips. Desserts were straight out of a factory. Having said that, no worse than the other eateries at Chatham Maritime and better than some.