Still Facing the Sunshine
On Beach Street in Deal, where the light shifts constantly across the shoreline and the town’s maritime past remains part of everyday life, Dunkerley’s has become something of a fixture. Part hotel, part restaurant, it is a place that feels woven into its setting rather than simply placed within it.
In June this year, Ian and Linda Dunkerley mark 39 years at the helm of their award-winning business. Yet their story stretches back even further than that. The Dunkerley name is tied closely to Deal’s lifeboat history; one of the hotel rooms, ‘The Signal Man’, is named after Ian’s grandfather Edward Hall, who served for 36 years as a local lifeboat man. It is this sense of continuity, of place and family that quietly underpins everything here.
Ian’s own working life began early. At just 14 he held down six jobs while still at school: running a Sunday newspaper business when W H Smiths was closed on a Sunday notably serving the newspaper at Ashford Station to then regular customer MP Bill Deedes. Serving customers at a chip shop on the Stanhope estate- and even scraping winkles from Folkestone harbour walls to sell by the cone. It was a lesson in graft that never left him.
After studying at Thanet College, Ian worked at London’s Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair in the early 1970s before heading kitchens across South Kent. Childhood summers spent around Walmer Green, while his grandfather served on the lifeboat, eventually drew him back to Deal.
With Linda, whom he met while head chef at The Woolpack in Chilham, he opened The Cambridge Room in 1979. Further roles followed at The Royal Hotel under the Mermaid Group, where trade trebled within six months and later at the 100-bed Abbotts Barton in Canterbury. Ian was appointed the position of Director of Mermaid cellars & shipping. By 1987 ready to build something of their own, the couple purchased a modest café-restaurant on Beach Street called Pegasus.
What followed was steady evolution rather than overnight transformation. The restaurant expanded. Bedrooms were created above. Two garages were replaced with a modern kitchen. In 1997 the neighbouring Pier Hotel was incorporated, increasing capacity to 16 bedrooms and firmly establishing the business as a hotel with a restaurant at its heart.
Awards came along the way, including Southeast‘s Best Small Hotel in 2000. A terrace was added in 2007, introducing alfresco dining to the frontage and embracing Deal’s coastal atmosphere. Refurbishments have continued over the years not dramatic reinventions, but careful refinements, and all rooms are now fully air conditioned.
Today, the kitchen is led by Ben Dunkerley, bringing nearly two decades of experience while maintaining the family’s steady approach. Ian, now 71, remains closely involved. Staff development has always been part of the ethos; young recruits gain confidence and discipline here and some return later in senior roles.
Like many long-standing independent businesses, Dunkerley’s has weathered recessions and the disruption of the pandemic. The phrase Ian returns to is simple: “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” It is a mindset that perhaps explains the restaurant’s longevity.
Heading into its 40th year, Dunkerley’s continues to look forward rather than back. Faces, as they say, to the sunshine.
