Welcome to Madge-gate! How ‘Shoreditch-on-Sea’ is cool again with artisan shops ‘the UK’s best Italian’ and house prices doubling in a decade – as Madonna says Margate is her ‘idea of heaven’

Chas and Dave insisted that rather than ‘the palaver of the Costa Brava’ they preferred to spend their holidays in Margate.

The Cockney pop duo scored a minor hit in 1982 celebrating the great British seaside town and its traditions of jellied eels, buckets and spades, donkey rides and collecting winkle shells.

Now it’s a music artist of a very different kind promoting the virtues of modern-day Margate – after pop superstar Madonna revealed the once crumbling resort on the Kent coast is her ‘idea of heaven’.

Paying homage to the town, the Queen of Pop added: ‘Whenever I go there, I feel like I’ve entered a dream.’

Madonna, the best selling female recording artist of all time, told how she had visited Margate a number of times and said: ‘The whole town seems to be inhabited and energised by creativity.

‘On top of all that, I get to eat at my favourite Italian restaurant which I’m not giving anyone the name of because then everyone’s going to go there and it only has one table!!’

That restaurant is Cantina Caruso, a small family-run deli that serves a delicious tiramisu, which is one of Madonna’s favourite dishes, we can reveal.

The restaurant – which has just one table – has also ben hailed by Masterchef host Grace Dent as having ‘possibly some of the best Italian food in modern Britain’.

In her love letter to Margate the queen of pop, 67, posted a series of photographs of herself out and about in the coastal town on Instagram, saying it was good to share something that was ‘not about hatred and killing’ but which celebrated ‘human connection – and the ability that art had to elevate people and to bring people together’.

The American singer seemed in little doubt about who she believed was responsible for turning around the fortunes of the formerly neglected town – her long-standing close friend Tracey Emin.

The artist, now Dame Tracey, is one of Margate’s most famous residents who has herself frequently championed her hometown.

In her post to her 20million followers this week, Madonna described Emin as ‘a pearl’ and ‘a precious necklace around a seaside town in England called Margate’.

She went on: ‘I have known Tracey for 25 years and I have always been a fan of her extremely personal and provocative work. But what she has created in this community by the sea is quite remarkable’.

Madonna highlights her friend’s artist residency programme where she invites creators from around the world, who would otherwise have no place to go, to live and paint for several months – helping them to develop their talent and be part of ‘the many exhibitions which happen around Margate’.

This, she said, has led to the town being ‘energised by creativity’ with ‘writers, performance artists, photographers and painters’ flocking there.

Emin, 62, is perhaps most famous for an art installation featuring her own unmade bed complete with stained sheets, condoms, soiled underwear and cigarette butts which sold for a staggering £2.2million at an auction in 2014.

So did the controversial contemporary artist single-handedly oversee the remarkable renaissance of a town which not so long ago was one of Britain’s most deprived communities, as Madonna seems to suggest.

The answer, of course, is no. However Emin has, in recent years, been a leading light in a ‘culture-led regeneration’ that has seen the town transform into a trendy arts hub for former London hipsters which has been dubbed ‘Shoreditch-on-Sea’.

Now, according to local tourist officials, Margate is ‘the capital of British cool’.

They say even the town’s age-old traditions – from sandy beaches to fish n’ chips, seafood stalls and shore-side rides – all now come ‘with a hip twist’.

The tourist board adds that in Margate, ‘seaside kitsch is uber-cool’ – and presumably comes with an inflated price-tag to match.

Emin grew up in Margate in the 1970s when it was a popular destination for day trippers – largely working class Londoners attracted to its beaches dubbed ‘the golden mile’ and the Dreamland amusement park.

Originally a small fishing village, its popularity grew in the Victorian era when the wealthy arrived on paddle-ships to escape the smog-filled capital and when many of its grand hotels and homes were built.

It was Margate that established the tradition of donkey rides way back in 1790 and was the first seaside resort in Britain to introduce deckchairs on the beach in 1898.

For decades it continued to flourish with crowds of holidaymakers annually flocking to the resort – until the arrival of the cheap package holiday.

Seduced by the prospect of guaranteed sun in seemingly exotic locations, Britons began flying off abroad instead and Margate, like other British seaside towns, began to fall into an alarming decline.

Emin has told how, by the 1980s, the town became ‘a no-go-zone’ with boarded up shops, deserted streets and derelict arcades.

Dreamland, established on a site where there had been a funfair and amusement rides since 1880, faced an uncertain future after new owners announced plans to shut it down in 2003.

In its Victorian heyday, Margate’s ‘beauty, sunsets and skies’ attracted leading artists including JMW Turner – who would be the inspiration for the Turner Contemporary gallery which was opened on the town’s seafront in 2011, on the site of a cottage where the artist had stayed.

Emin was among those who supported the building of the gallery and was on hand for the officially opening along with musician Jools Holland.

The gallery – which has hosted exhibitions of the works of world-famous artists including Emin’s – boasts that since opening its doors it has welcomed nearly five million visitors and contributed £100million to the local economy.

More than anything else it has been credited as being the catalyst that kick-started the town’s regeneration.

Dreamland reopened in 2015 while the narrow cobbled streets of Margate’s old town became home to artisan cafes, stylish restaurants, vintage shops and boutiques.

With more galleries and studios spring up, the town was transformed into a hipster hangout with visitors soaring to 4.6million a year.

Most remained day-trippers – amounting to 73 per cent of visitors – although now with a more bohemian outlook.

They’re largely delivered via high speed train from St Pancras on journeys typically taking around 90 minutes – with Margate’s station less than a five minute walk away from the town’s main sandy beach.

As the crowds flooded back, rambling old houses become desirable again and new celebrity residents including Libertines frontman Pete Doherty began setting up home there.

The Libertines converted a dilapidated B&B in a five-storey Victorian townhouse into a boutique hotel in 2017 – although the Albion Rooms have since transitioned into a residential recording studio, private hire and events space.

It is situated on the edge of Cliftonville where, at the town’s lowest ebb, regency villas were converted into crack dens and the neighbourhood had one of the highest mortality rates in the region.

The gentrification of the town led Margate to become one of the UK’s hottest property markets with house prices doubling over the past ten years.

This invasion of so-called DFLs (Down From Londoners) – especially in fashionable-again Cliftonville – was further fuelled by the Covid pandemic.

Local estate agents say terraced houses that would have sold for £25,000 in the 1990s are now fetching more than £230,000.

Last year Time Out magazine named Northdown Road in Cliftonville one of the world’s coolest streets, praising its ‘edgy feel’.

After many years living in London, Emin herself moved back to Margate in 2017 and opened her studio in Cliftonville three years ago in a converted bathhouse and mortuary.

Hollywood also contributed to Margate’s newfound glitzy appeal, with its streets providing the backdrop for the 2023 movie Empire of Light starring Olivia Coleman and directed by Sam Mendes.

It was also the setting for the Sky Atlantic comedy drama Dreamland starring Lily Allen which was released in the same year.

Elliott Tagg, 37, who works as a freelance video producer, moved to the town seven years ago from east London.  

He told the Daily Mail: ‘We’ve got the artisan bakers, restaurants with food from all around the world and the little boutique shops.

‘But there’s also a hive of creativity here. In the 1990s it was west London, in the noughties it was the East End and now it’s moved further east still to Margate.

‘The town already had a good arts scene when Tracey Emin moved back here and the Turner Gallery was built.

‘But now it’s becoming a hub for film crews and production. As well as Dreamland, the film Empire of Light was filmed here starring Olivia Colman and Toby Jones. 

‘Eastenders has filmed in Margate recently and there was a McDonald’s advert also shot here the other day.

‘It may be an average sized seaside town but it offers a wealth of resources when it comes to filming locations.

‘People are watching shows like Dreamland and are now coming to Margate and seeing for themselves what it’s like.’

Not everyone is happy with the changes, with many locals complaining they have been priced out of the market while highlighting an ever widening social divide.

Lifelong resident Jessica Scott, 19, told the Daily Mail: ‘The trouble is getting somewhere to live. 

‘I still live with my parents because it would be impossible for me to even rent somewhere here.

‘There’s not enough houses. Most get turned into Airbnbs and sit empty most the year. For those who have lived here all their lives it is quite annoying.’

The bakery worker added: ‘There’s still some rough spots but the atmosphere of the place has really changed in recent years. 

‘It’s definitely because of the increase in people moving here.’

Further regeneration is on the way through a £22.2million funding project set to help build a new ‘creative quarter’ along the promenade together with proposals to re-open the town’s historic Theatre Royal.

Such has been Margate’s success, that plans have been drawn up in Blackpool – Britain’s most famous seaside resort – to reinvent itself as ‘the coastal capital of creativity’.

Adam Knight, chief executive of Blackpool Grand Theatre, said: ‘Our unique and unrivalled collection of cultural assets combined with the creativity, determination and ambition of our communities can outshine previous UK success stories, such as Margate in Kent.’

He added that Margate’s ‘belief in culture and creativity’ have resulted in ‘a diversification of cultural tourism’ along with ‘a resurgence of visitor numbers and long-term investment that benefits residents and businesses alike’.

It can be said with some degree of certainty that Madonna did not have Margate in mind when she launched herself onto the global stage with her first worldwide hit Holiday back in 1983.

Nor is the song likely to have been inspired by Chas and Dave’s release just months earlier which started out life as an advert for Courage Best bitter.

But her latest musings suggest things might be quite different if she ever decides to make another vacation-themed recording.