Former Mermaid Inn head chef to open “brand new and different” street food restaurant in Rye

Rather than focus on fine dining, which Chef Kyle has worked in for almost his entire career, the new restaurant will focus on street food, with the former executive chef hoping his gourmet pedigree will put a new spin on classic food truck-fare.

Dishes will have a wide range of influence, some of them inspired by the chefs own travels and training abroad. The eatery, dubbed Tatner’s Street Kitchen, will serve everything from American cuisine, to seafood treats, to Asian fusion, and Greek food.

Kyle’s journey towards owning the restaurant started five years ago, when he returned from travelling with his wife to start his own catering company: Tatner’s.

The business gave Kyle his first taste of food-truck style cooking, as he ran pop-ups, food stalls, catered for weddings and started Tatner’s Kitchen- a seafront eatery in Camber Sands. According to Kyle, the business was a resounding success, helping inspire him to start his own restaurant.

He said: “It just went from strength to strength and people were looking for our food trucks, our food stalls for their events.”

“Informal dining is very popular right now. People don’t want a seven course tasting meal or have to get all dressed up. I was trying to build a catering company that was different from everybody else.”

With a new restaurant in tow, Kyle hopes to continue operating Tatner’s, but in a scaled-down, “streamlined” capacity, focusing on food stalls.

For Kyle, though, settling into a single building could be the right move. He said: “It’s not weather dependent and I thought ‘well we have a strong enough reputation for ourselves to be able to put it all into a restaurant’. It’s something completely different, especially for Rye.”

The new restaurant, which is due to open in Mid-March- will be in Wish Street, in the same building as the now closed Old Forge steakhouse.

To find out more about Kyle and his company, Tatner’s catering, click here.