The Foundry

The home of Canterbury Brewers (the brewery's stainless steel tuns are visible on the ground floor), the Foundry also does a fine line in gussied-up pub grub. A plate of rarebit – the topping a proper smooth, tangy paste – was not just well-turned, but given the ludicrous thickness of the bread and the prosaic but bright side salad, it was also much bigger than its £4.50, "light bite" billing suggested. Elsewhere on the menu, a sharing platter of pies, served with third-pint tasters of three Canterbury beers, stood out (£10.95), as does the home-baked gammon, egg and chips, and the bangers'n'mash with ale gravy (both £8.95). Of the 14 craft keg and cask beers on tap, the Gold (pint £3.30, an amber bitter with a bristly hop character) and the excellent US-style, hop-forward IPA, Punch (£3.75), are both recommended. One warning: I visited twice and, each time, the music was dire. Guetta-ised chart pop, lachrymose R&B, Queen … Thank God the beer is so good.

• Light bites from £4.25, meals from £8.50. White Horse Lane, 01227 455899, thefoundrycanterbury.co.uk

Marino's Fish Bar

Marino’s Fish Bar, Canterbury

Forget Michelin stars or AA rosettes: when eating at sub-£10 level, the signifiers of good food are far more subtle. A wood-fired pizza oven, for instance, or Tea Guild membership are telling indications that a venue takes what it does seriously. In chippy terms, the National Federation of Fish Friers' Quality Award is just such a stamp of authority. Only the second chip shop in Kent to secure the mark, Marino's is – on this evidence – at the capable rather than exemplary end of the new-wave chippy spectrum. There were some quibbles: skin-on fish is mystifying; and the generally light batter had, in patches, taken on a not entirely unpleasant firmer, bready quality. But the chips were fresh, fluffy and characterful, the cod firm and the batter had a nice lactic tang. Even if you consider calamari and Häagen-Dazs unnecessary affectations in a chip shop, Marino's justifies its Quality Award on the plate. Or, in this case, the recyclable box.

• Adult fish and chips £5.60-£6.40. 70 St Dunstan's Street and 159 Wincheap, marino-fishbar.com

Brunch

Brunch, Canterbury

Brunch is one of those increasingly uncommon sights: a family-owned, high street operation which emphasises local ingredients across a simple menu of upmarket but fairly priced sandwiches, panini, a daily soup and a filling one-pot. A sample tub of slow-cooked new potato, lentil, bean and bacon stew was big on smokey, tomatoey flavours, many of the beans and lentils having melted away into a creamy paste. On a blustery day, it shut the wind out. However, the bread, while good – it was a wedge from a large loaf – had gone a little stale along its pre-cut edge. Small as it is, Brunch is a smart, modern space, too.

• Sandwiches and one-pots £3-£5.60. 3 High Street, 01227 781427; brunchcanterbury.com

The Dolphin

Photograph: Russ Barnes

Look beyond the idiosyncratic clutter (Michelin men, toy cars, assorted industrial warning signs) and the Dolphin is a rather handsome vintage boozer, complete with conservatory that opens on to a neat garden. The menu is short, portions enormous and – judging from a smoked mackerel and roasted new potato salad, served with thick doorsteps of wholemeal bread and butter (£8.25) – the cooking a little dated. Tasty but dated. The plate had seemingly been pre-lacquered with balsamic and there were even a few grapes hiding in the leafy undergrowth. Which you don't expect to see in 2013. Despite such retro flourishes, it was a perfectly satisfactory plate of food. It's one of the few places in Canterbury that serves a solid core of sub-£10 dishes in the evening as well as at lunch. The beer choice on this visit (Taylor's, serviceable Wainwright, Sharp's Doom Bar, inescapable in Kent) was a bit boring.

• Salads and baguettes £8.25, main meals from £8.75. 17 St Radigunds Street, 01227 455963, thedolphincanterbury.co.uk

Canteen

Canteen, Canterbury

Part exam, part sandwich shop, Canteen is one of those healthy wrap and salad joints, where you're faced with a bewildering array of possible ingredients and garnishes, illustrated on brightly coloured flow charts. It is worth the brain strain. A falafel and hummus wrap, dressed with a zippy, herby sauce, delivered a great nutty, garlicky lick of fresh, clean flavours. If you're in a hurry or too hungover to navigate the choices, Canteen also does various pre-packed wraps, baps and sandwiches, as well as soups.

• Salads and wraps £3.95-£4.95. 17 Sun Street, canteenfresh.co.uk

Osteria Posillipo

Posillipo, Canterbury

Wood-fired oven? Check. Neapolitan owners? Check. Needless to say, the blast-cooked pizza at Espedito Tammaro and Enzo Esposito's friendly Italian is a cut above. Generally, toppings are kept to a judicious three or four. These are the sort of bases – paper thin in the middle, nicely charred, crisp to the bite – that need little more, in terms of augmentation, than a sprightly tomato pulp and sweet pools of mozzarella. To keep costs down, you're best taking away at night, but, each afternoon, until 6pm, Osteria serves a two-course menu (£9.95).

• Pizzas £7.50-£11.95, pasta dishes from £6.50. 16 The Borough, 01227 761471, posillipo.co.uk

Willow's Secret Kitchen

Willow’s Secret Kitchen, Canterbury

Outside Canterbury Heritage Museum, you will find several A-boards, jostling for space, advertising two hidden-away rivals, Willow's Secret Kitchen and Brown's Coffee House (Water Lane, 07729 167901, facebook.com/BrownsCoffeehouse). Both pride themselves on the quality of their coffee, offering single-origin beans in a variety of geeky vacuum, Aeropress and pour-over filter styles. Brown's even displays the temperature that it heats its milk to and urges its customers not to add sugar. I must admit, after such a big build-up, I found the flat whites a little disappointing at both places. They were much better than the average high street coffee of course, but not quite the perfect amalgam of luxurious smoothness and rich, rounded coffee heft you expect at this level. Food-wise, Brown's carries a small selection of cakes and pastries (£1.20-£2.10), including delicious macaroons from local cake maker Just One Cook. Willow's majors on interesting, affordable sandwiches (brussels pâté, ploughman's), salad boxes and jacket potatoes. For £4, its full-breakfast bap was decent value, although the moist, herby butcher's sausages were a lot better than the rather drab bacon.

• Baps and sandwiches from £2.45 (takeaway), £3 (eat-in). 42 Stour Street, facebook.com/willowssecretkitchen

The Veg Box

The Veg Box, Canterbury

Super-relaxed, super-friendly and busy in a way that suggests it reaches out beyond its core constituency, this veggie-vegan cafe (naturally, the walls are painted a vivid green) is clearly much-loved in Canterbury. A special of roast parsnip, leek and nutty spelt salad felt toppy at £8, but plenty of herbs and a few salty black olives helped give it distinct dimensions of flavour. It also came with bouncingly fresh homemade bread. The wider menu runs to soups, bean burgers, sandwiches, salads and tempting quiche (say, butternut squash, smoked paprika and cheddar). You can wash all that down with select local beers, including Whitstable Brewery's pilsner (£2.75). If you need something to read over lunch, pick up an issue of stimulating anarchist freesheet Resistance in the wholefoods shop, downstairs.

• Sandwiches, soups and meals £4.95-£8.95. 1-2 Jewry Lane, thevegboxcafe.co.uk

Refectory Kitchen

Refectory Kitchen, Canterbury

An unusually good flat white (£2) and a takeaway sandwich menu (from £2.60) that boasts free-range roast chicken and relatively exotic fillings such as chilli and garlic sausage, are early indications of this cafe's foodist rigour. The Refectory smokes and cures its own excellent bacon (rashers as thick as gammon steaks), fish and cheese, and on its breakfast and lunch menus serves an engaging variety of ingredient-led dishes. In terms of value, lunch seems the better option. Eggs Benedict for £8 is always going to sting, no matter how good it is, and this was sound, rather than astounding. Lunches, such as ox cheek stew with watercress dumplings, or aubergine and courgette fritters with a tomato salad, seem more sensibly priced at £7-£9.

• Breakfast £2.95-£9.95, lunches £4.95-£9.95. 16 St Dunstan's Street, refectorykitchen.wordpress.com

The Goods Shed Market

Patrick's Kitchen, Canterbury

The Goods Shed restaurant you may know, and its adjacent, six-day-a-week market is regularly mentioned in dispatches too. Less talked about is what a resource this place is for the hungry, cash-strapped traveller. As much as it's a produce market, the Goods Shed is also home to several "street food" operations, which serve snacks and meals for around £2-£7. These include Enzo's Bakery, with its savoury Italian tarts and overflowing baked panino (enzosbakery.co.uk), and Curiously Kentish (curiouslykentish.co.uk), whose rustic sautéed potato hashes are mined with their own corned beef and chorizo. You can eat at various communal tables and, at the Bottle Shop, pick-up a cold beer (£3-£4.50) from an impressive range of craft breweries from the UK (Marble, Thornbridge) and the US (Odell's, Flying Dog).

The picks of the bunch, however, are Jonny Sandwich and Patrick's Kitchen. The former specialises in A1 gourmet sandwiches (£3.50-£4.50), which include fillings such as slow-roasted pork belly and roasted pear, or organic poached salmon with dill and lemon creme fraiche. The owner, Jonny Butterfield, is renowned for cooking everything he can from scratch and using seasonal produce from the surrounding stalls. When I ordered an (excellent) smoked mackerel pâté sandwich, someone popped out from behind the counter, picked a couple of Braeburn apples from the neighbouring grocer's and sliced them on top. Jonny's chicken pie (£2.80 a slice) is legendary in Canterbury. The advertised chorizo was a little lost in the mix, but no matter: this was one of the most ruggedly authentic chicken pies I have ever tasted, the pastry meltingly good.

At the aforementioned Patrick Williams' kitchen, things get more sophisticated. An experienced chef in the vein of (his old mate) Rowley Leigh, Williams cooks very accurate, quietly elegant food, its apparent simplicity underpinned by some very sharp classical technique. There are sausage rolls and sweet tarts to takeaway and a short menu of dishes (£4.25-£6.75), such as fried egg on pork terrine, fish soup with a saffron rouille or a highly recommended kedgeree, its fragrant spicing accomplished, the egg yolks still soft and golden. In fact, Patrick is passionate about eggs, and serves breakfast (a dish many chefs think beneath them) all day. His unit has three stools at which you can sit, watch him work, and, if you like, quiz him about what he is doing. So, not only can you eat well, for under £10, but you can also get an informal cookery lesson, for free.

• Station Road West, 01227 459153, thegoodsshed.co.uk

Travel between Manchester and London was provided by Virgin Trains (virgintrains.co.uk). Accommodation in Canterbury was provided by ABode Hotels (01227 766266, abodehotels.co.uk). Until June, ABode is offering B&B plus dinner for two in four cities from £99. For more information on things to do in and around Canterbury, go to visitkent.co.uk