Former Michelin-starred Read’s restaurant up for sale for £3m

Read’s restaurant with rooms in Macknade Manor in Canterbury, which held a Michelin star for 20 years from 1991, has been put up for sale for £3m.

The Georgian manor house is also home to six letting rooms, a two-bedroom coach house, three reception rooms and a kitchen garden.

Macknade Manor, which sits in 2.7 acres of land, has received planning permission for the development of 17 additional bedrooms on the site of the tennis court and stables.

Read’s was first founded by David Pitchford and his wife Rona in the village of Painters Forstal in Kent in 1977.

The couple then moved their restaurant to the Faversham site in 2000. Read’s remains open five days a week, with average spend for dinner at £100 a head and lunch priced at £60 a head.

News of the sale, which is being advised by Strutt & Parker, comes after the Pitchfords revealed in February 2020 that they would take a back seat in the business with the appointment of Frederick Forster as head chef.

Forster tweeted that he left his role in March 2022.