University of Kent Magazine | AU/WI 2019 | www.kent.ac.uk
STAFF PROFILE
FOOD FOR THOUGHT Sam Ranger Chef
Street Kitchen was first opened on our Canterbury campus in 2017. Located in Jarman plaza it is the go-to place for feel-good food on the go. With a new menu every week, serving flavoursome food at affordable prices, it caters for vegetarians, vegans and meat-eaters. For the editors of this magazine, Street Kitchen is a blessing – an antidote to the mundanity of sandwiches every day! Sam Ranger is the chef who heads up the Street Kitchen team.
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Sam grew up in Whitstable, and attended Barton Court Grammar School in Canterbury. He moved away from Kent, before going travelling for a year – south-east Asia, New Zealand, South America: “Food played a massive part when I was travelling. My girlfriend was writing a travel journal while we were away – I was just writing a food diary!” After returning to Kent, Sam was working in the Bishop’s Finger pub in Canterbury, near the Westgate Towers. The head chef left, and Sam was offered some shifts in the kitchen. He thought this meant helping out, and was therefore surprised to be running the kitchen. “It was quite a small kitchen with a relatively simple menu. I was into my food, but this was being thrown into the deep end. It was a case of, ‘You are the chef now’. You learn quickly that way, because you have to.”
