A bird’ s eye view of food and drink in the city
Once upon a time, not so long ago, it was a clear view along the beach from King Alfred to Millionaire’ s Row- as the gull flies at least. But these days, there’ s an increasing selection of landing stages for an ageing bird as Hove Beach fills with eateries, and happily, the pickings are getting better and better. At Rockwater, we may have found that all that glitters isn’ t necessarily the gold that we gulls demand from our leftovers, but the Fish Shack with its fresh, locally caught fish and seafood, both raw to take home and freshly prepared, is excellent news indeed.
But it’ s Babble that has had the gulls gathering; Sam of Slam Tacos is in charge of the menu and buying his meat from Barfields Butchers and much of the rest from Shrub, names that fans of the Gull About Town will recognise as a mark of excellence. The menu may sound like it’ s luring in the festival crowd with its pork shoulder tacos, its fish tacos, charred broccoli tacos and a double slam burger, but when the dairy comes from Northiam, it’ s a sign that there’ s more to this pleasuredome than meets the bird’ s eye.
Catching a thermal east to Tourist Town, an aroma hits your bird’ s beak from a distant memory. Great Uncle Gulliver, a legend in the
Happy now?
I
have written about the Regency, my favourite Brighton restaurant, before: every so often, when I am in funds, or someone else is paying, I stroll down the hill to this venerable seafront establishment in order to gorge myself on oysters or, if there is no R in the month, whitebait. Sometimes both. Portions of the latter are large enough that even as a starter there are plenty.
Now, everyone knows what an oyster is like, so I won’ t describe them. If you’ re serving fresh oysters, you can’ t really muck them up. Whitebait, on the other hand …
The whitebait I had become accustomed to at the Regency were crunchy fish from heaven, coated in breadcrumbs and deepfried, but never greasy. They were like fun-sized fish fingers, only... fish. There is something appealing about eating an entire animal in one mouthful, if you like that kind of thing.( Cf. oysters.) If you don’ t then my apologies, and I hope gull community for his tales of travel way off the migratory routes, would have the young gulls rapt as he told of roadside cafés and street food where birds had only to perch patiently for the most delicious leftover rice and noodles. Could the spirit of his stories have really made their way to Brighton? So it seems; Roti King in Ship Street was inspired by the same roadside cafes in Ipoh, Malaysia, and is now part of a chain of cool restaurants in London. With main man, Sugen Gopal’ s first book out, and a massive following on Instagram, it looks like the famous fat noodles, Char Kway Teow, and the rotis, handstretched in full view of customers, spun and served with a little fish kari, will be thrilling more than the gulls.
And so, to home, to West Hill where your gull again catches a waft of something new. The Sussex Yeoman, once a legend in its own lunchtime, has been recovering slowly from COVID. Your bird has been watching THE former hot spot for Sunday try to recover for years. So, when the evocative aroma of beef and Chianti ragu, slow-cooked for hours began to rise from its kitchen, she formed an orderly queue with her feathered friends to get first pickings. Yup, it was the unmistakable
I haven’ t offended. But Brighton is very much a live and let live kind of place. Or is it? A few weeks ago some money miraculously found its way into my bank account and down the hill I went to the Regency. All the way down I was thinking about whitebait; so I ordered a plate. I did not think to ask how they were prepared, for I had been going there for years and knew what to expect; or I thought I did. For when the plate arrived, it wasn’ t a plate of breadcrumbed paradise, but a plate of nude fish, with a dusting of paprika on top. I forked a few mouthfuls and then gave up. Imagine how disappointed you’ d be if you’ d gone to a fish and chip shop and found that your cod or whatever had been served without batter,
I tried to have a word with the waitress but she was new and hadn’ t quite mastered the English language yet – when it comes to their waiting staff, the Regency’ s policy seems to be to hire on the basis of beauty taste of Pasta Evangelists, the finish-at-home, restaurant standard food delivery service, one of the clever inventions to emerge from that stressful period of fight or flight.
Waddling up the road to her favourite rooftop to watch the sun set, your gull pops over to say goodnight to her favourite shopkeeper and pick at some of the avocado leftovers outside. But wait … Can it be that West Hill’ s iconic community leader, the godfather of last minute green peppers, the best tap dancer in the neighbourhood has left the building! And what’ s this? Shelf after shelf of …( whisper it) crisps? Your gull, suddenly finding a second wind beneath her wings, joins in with the crowd of gulls, a-gaggle with tales, some taller than others perhaps, of childlevel chocolates at the counter. And we’ re not squawking about those made directly with cocoa growers in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. As she bends her head under her wing, she sighs sadly. One claw forward, she reminds herself, and dreams of a new tomorrow.
Nicholas Lezard
and a general keenness, not fluency in the language. And quite right too, I think. After about ten strained minutes of communication in pidgin and hand gestures, I was given to understand that this was the new whitebait situation, and that if I didn’ t like it, then that was too bad.
Well, we are not put into this world for pleasure alone, and one must be philosophical. But when I went there a couple of days ago, with the very editor of this magazine, as it happens, I asked again about the whitebait, and it was confirmed that they were still the unbreaded kind. I gave a little pout and said that I had really liked the old-style way of cooking them.
“ People didn’ t like them,” said the waiter.
I find this hard to believe. The only explanation I can think of is that everyone has become coeliac and can no longer eat even breadcrumbs. But that can’ t be right, can it?