Serving Up #1
The newsletter of Brighton's Best Restaurants
Welcome to Serving up
Serving Up is the first ever newsletter from Brighton’s Best Restaurants. It marks our 10th anniversary and a new era as we pursue our vision to become the definitive and most relied-upon expert curated guide to the independent restaurant and bar scene in Brighton and Hove and surrounding area. We are launching with a twice monthly publication schedule, so please use the subscribe button below to make sure you get Serving Up #2 in your inbox on Friday 13th March (gasp! I hope you’re not superstitious.) Our goal for Serving Up is to bring you a bit closer to the people behind the Brighton and Hove restaurant scene and harness their knowledge and expertise to help you get the most out of dining and drinking in the city and beyond.
Serving Up is aimed at Brighton and Hove residents and visitors to the city, but we’ve also designed the newsletter to be of interest to anyone who loves restaurants, food, drink and travel, so expect plenty of UK and Worldwide recommendations as well as hints and tips you can apply when you are eating and drinking at home.
We’ve partnered with The Bristol Sauce to bring you recommendations from Brighton’s spiritual twin city. Serving Up will be returning the favour and making Brighton recommendations to the readers of The Bristol Sauce. We hope to be announcing a London partner soon too. Above all, we want Serving Up to be a really good read and something you look forward to seeing in your inbox twice a month. We are really excited to share the first edition with you. We hope you enjoy it. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments,
Andy Lynes - editor and founder and co-director of Brighton’s Best Restaurants
Sue Woodward - co-director of Brighton’s Best Restaurants
The Lowdown
Chef Dominic Sherriff, Bonsai Plant Kitchen
What’s your earliest food memory?
Cooking with my grandfather. He was born in India, so we used to make onion bhajis, samosas, chutneys and stuff like that. I was very young. He would have me on a little footstool things next to the hob. My mum showed me a picture of me cooking with my grandfather and I was wearing a butchers aprons, which weirdly is what we wear in the restaurant now.
Are you a coffee or tea person?
Tea, definitely. I always buy Yorkshire Tea, maybe Twining’s Gold Blend if I’m feeling posh. Never Tetley’s. I like a strong stewing on the bag, three or four minutes until it’s jet black, and then a glug of oat milk.
What is the best thing about being a chef and restaurateur?
Taking raw ingredients, something very simple like a leek, and seeing that creative process through to the end product of a skewered braised leek with a teriyaki sauce. We’re an open kitchen at the restaurant, so customers come up and say, ‘That was amazing, thank you. I’ve never eaten anything like that before’ - that’s probably the best thing about being a chef.
As a restaurateur, it’s creating a space to give customers a level of escapism. I think that’s kind of what restaurants are about. That’s why we went for a low-lit, neon izakaya den feel. You step in and you wouldn’t know you’re on Baker Street in Brighton, you are transported to Japan.
What’s the worst thing about being a chef and restaurateur?
When you go into work and you’ve been out the night before with the team. You had about three hours sleep and you know you’ve got a 14 hour day ahead. You’re thinking, why did I not go home at 11 o’clock? Why was I having shots of tequila at four in the morning when the lights were coming on? That’s probably the worst thing - that regret, the pain.
If you weren’t a chef, what would you be?
A carpenter; another trade using my hands that’s creative.
Who do you most admire in the hospitality industry?
Jamie Oliver. Some people hate him and a lot of chefs don’t like him but I’m a fan. He’s authentically himself. He doesn’t do all the screaming, shouting and swearing. He’s very relatable and he cooks food that you can do at home. I think that’s important. With a lot of chefs you think, “I’m never going to go and buy some dehydrated seaweed from Scandinavia”, or some ridiculous thing like that. Whereas with Jamie, it’s more kind of, “Here’s a tin of white beans from Tesco. Here’s how you make a bean stew.”
What is your favourite comfort food?
Katsu curry instant noodles. I’d finish work on a Saturday night at around midnight, go home, get a packet of instant noodles out, put the kettle on and boil the noodles. I’d make up the curry paste, pour it all over the noodles and finish it with crispy onions.
What is the next restaurant on your hit list?
Plates in London is at the top of the list at the moment but it’s always got a three month waiting list. Chef Kirk Howarth’s plant-based food looks incredible; it’s really clever, really cool and very different.
Tell us about a hidden gem in Brighton
Blossom’s cocktail bar. I’m a big fan. Vodka’s the only thing that seems to agree with me, so I always order an espresso martini.
What in your opinion is the best food destination in the world?
In terms of value for money, Vietnam, just because the produce over there is incredible, really good herbs and spices, and there’s the freshness of it as well. I’ve been a few times; you’d have a massive lunch and it’d be three or four pounds.
But in terms of quality, it’s got to be Japan. My brother lives in Tokyo, so I’ve been over a couple of times. The service is impeccable and the attention to detail is just ridiculous. Even if you go to a late night ramen shop at three in the morning, you’ll get incredible food.
What’s the best thing you’ve eaten in a restaurant recently?
I was in a taperia in Benalauría in Andalusia a little while ago. It’s super remote. You pay two euros for a plate of tapas. Tomatoes were in season and they had beef tomatoes that were the size of a football. It was just a plate of local tomatoes with black salt and oregano that had apparently been picked that morning in the mountains, and just dressed in local olive oil. It was incredible. Something very simple, but really good ingredients.
Dominic Sherriff is the chef/director of Bonsai Plant Kitchen.
The Details
Bonsai Plant Kitchen
44-45 Baker St, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN1 4JN.
01273 708089; bonsaiplantkitchen.co.uk
What’s in Benjamin Arthur’s glass?
I live just around the corner from 10 Green Bottles wine bar, which is great, but also quite unhealthy. They do an amazing wine called Integrale (INT3GRAL3 on the label) a rose pét-nat from Veneto in Italy that is incredible. It’s a really good price point. Really clean and fresh. If I’m cooking dinner and I can’t really think about what to pair, I’ll just get a bottle of that and it works with everything.
On our list at Embers, we have a wine called Cantina di Negra Corvina from Verona that basically goes with most of our dishes. It’s the only wine on the list that we’ve never changed. We found out quite early on that really big, bold wines don’t pair that well with the food here because they just tend to be competing. A slightly paired back, easier going wine list with good Italian reds and that kind of thing works a lot better; you’re not pitching big bold flavours against one another, so a Corvina sums up that mentality. It works particularly well with a steak with our fresh, herbaceous chimichurri sauce.
Benjamin Arthur is the General Manager of Embers
The Details
Embers, 42 Meeting House Lane, Brighton, BN1 1HB. 01273 869222; embersbrighton.co.uk
Brighton’s Best Dish #1
English Wagu steak with peppercorn sauce at The Crazy Goose
The Crazy Goose is the latest addition to Raz Helalat’s Black Rock Group that also includes Burnt Orange, The Coal Shed, Tutto and The Salt Room. It occupies the site of the original Coal Shed, tucked away in a quiet back street between the Lanes and West Street. It’s Black Rock’s first pub and the first project under the group’s new executive chef Kim Woodward who previously worked for Gordon Ramsay for 10 years and was the first female head chef of The Savoy Grill.
Set over two floors with a ground floor bar and first floor dining room, The Crazy Goose is somewhere between a gastropub and a Parisian bistro and has been kitted out with all the style and care you would expect from a Black Rock venue. Brighton’s Best Restaurant’s co-director Sue Woodward was one of the first customers through the door and singled out English Wagu steak with peppercorn sauce (£28) as the highlight of her meal.
‘This is proper comfort food territory with the addition of the luxurious elements you expect from a Raz Helalat restaurant. The wagu steak was cooked beautifully pink and had a deep, rich flavour, enhanced by the peppercorn sauce served on the side. I ended up dipping the steak into the sauce so I could taste it with and without. I chose two sides to accompany the steak; grilled brassicas, punchy with the addition of plenty of garlic confit, and some creamy mash given a serious upgrade by the addition of a rich bone marrow jus and a piece of bone marrow on top. I scooped out the marrow and devoured it. I could have eaten thing myself but reluctantly shared it. A glass of Cote du Rhone had a robust enough finish to match the rich flavours and textures of the meal.’
The Details
The Crazy Goose
8 Boyce’s Street, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 1AN
01273 929079; thecrazygoose.co.uk
Brighton’s Best Cocktail Recipe #1
Green Chilli Pickle Bloody Mary by The Chilli Pickle
Ingredients
Vodka 50ml
Passata 50ml
Tomato juice 50ml
Green Chilli Pickle Juice 25ml (see recipe below)
Lemon juice 10ml
Worcestershire sauce dash
Black pepper pinch
Method
Stir over ice and garnish with a chilli, lemon slice, stick of celery and Tajin rim. Tajin is a Mexican spice mix. You can substitute a mix of equal amounts of celery salt and Kashmiri chilli.
To make the green chilli pickle juice:
Ingredients
Mustard oil 50ml
Veg oil 50ml
Fenugreek seed 12g
Mustard seed black 12g
Chopped garlic 50g
Chopped ginger 50g
Asafoitida 25g
Indian Green Chilli 200g
White wine vinegar 1 litre
Method
Heat mustard oil until smoking, then cool to remove the oil’s astringent taste. Reheat with the veg oil and add fenugreek and mustard seeds until golden and the mustard pops. Add the garlic and ginger and cook until golden. Add asafoitida, cook for 1 minute. Add green chilli cook until softens. Add vinegar and salt. Bring to boil, stir simmer for ten minutes. Remove from heat and cool. Strain all juice pressing with the back of a spoon. Place in a glass. When the mixture has settled, remove the oil from top.
The Details
The Chilli Pickle
6-8 Meeting House Lane, Brighton, BN1 1HB.
01273 442893; thechillipickle.com
The restaurant has recently launched a new menu that includes new and classic dishes, as well as an £18 set curry lunch.
Diego Ricaurte’s Storecupboard Standby: Cumin
Cumin in one of my favourite spices. It can be very powerful; it’s a pungent spice and some people don’t like it, but you just need to use the right amount. You can use it in in different ways - dry roasted, fried, powdered, roasted and crushed - and create different flavour profiles. It can bring flavour to a lot of things. For example, at Palmito, we roast quite a few vegetables on the open fire grill. We don’t try to do too much to them, just par-boil them and chuck them on the grill. But I always find that, if you add cumin in some form - to whatever the garnish is, or just on top of them, mixed with other spices - it really enhances the wood smoke flavour.
One of the nicest things is when we do grilled beetroots. We get some cold pressed rapeseed oil, some dry roasted cumin and a little bit of whatever chilli powder we’re working with like Aleppo or a South American chilli like rocoto, and we toss the beetroots in the oil. It brings a certain warmth, and it’s a really nice contrast to the roasted vegetable flavour. It’s one of my favourite things to eat.
Diego Ricaurte is chef/director of Palmito restaurant
The Details
Palmito
16 Western Road,Hove BN3 1AE.
01273 777588; palmito.co.uk
Out of Town: Bristol
Chez Candice, Boiling Wells Farm by Meg Houghton-Gilmour
Chez Candice is a truly Bristol bonkersness of a spot; a converted horse-box on a farm that serves one of the best lunches in Bristol, generally in the form of delicious-things-on-bread. It doesn’t get more field to fork than this, and there’s no better place to witness the first tendrils of spring on a sunny day. If spring is not yet in the air, take refuge in the on-site yurt, built by Candice’s parents. If you’re lucky enough to visit on a day when there’s tart on the menu, order it.
The Details
Chez Candice
Watercress Farm, Boiling Wells, Bristol, BS2 9XY
Instagram: chez_candice
Meg Houghton-Gilmour is the founder and editor of The Bristol Sauce, a publication and collective of writers dedicated to making Bristol’s food scene the best it can be through honest, transparent and paid-for writing.
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