A bold new opening with serious pedigree
The recent opening of the new ‘public house’, The Crazy Goose, is going to cause some excitement among food lovers, coming as it does from the owners who have already brought Burnt Orange, The Salt Room and The Coal Shed to Brighton. In fact, The Crazy Goose is on the site of the original Coal Shed, which has moved. So you’ll know already that this isn’t the sort of pub you’ll be coming to for quiz night or the World Cup semis.
The ground floor is, nonetheless, revolves around the bar, and it was humming with good Brighton bonhomie when I arrived with my long-suffering wife on a Friday night; plenty of drinkers, as well as diners, had taken up residence. It was busy enough that we were sat upstairs, in a very warm room done out in bold, dark colours and rich wallpaper. Our table was covered in a thick, white linen tablecloth, an old-school dash of splendour that never grows old.
Our waiters, Ruth and Greg, were a delight, and upon learning Greg is French and establishing our respective roots (I was manufactured in Paris, he in Vendée on the west coast), and comparing our favourite, mostly unspeakable, esoteric delicacies, we immediately relinquished all decisions to him, and he repaid our trust with an evening to remember.
What You’ll Love
- A refined take on classic British pub dining
- Standout dishes with bold, nostalgic flavours
- A lively and polished atmosphere
- Knowledgeable, personable service
- Cooking that blends tradition with serious skill
A playful start and exceptional starters
After the free hot bread roll with butter, came three starters to share: scallops with ham, a prawn cocktail vol-au-vent, and lamb tartare.
The vol-au-vent, with a larger prawn sticking jauntily out of the top, was a bit of fun, a throwback to more innocent times, and as light as the wind it’s named after. The lamb tartare and scallops were really in a class of their own.
I have a long and interesting (actually, quite boring) history with tartare, usually a heavy pile of beef mince with a raw egg sat atop to stir in. It’s OK, but if ever a French favourite needed a refresh, it’s this. The lamb tartare was light, laced with mayonnaise, zingy enough to split diesel oil apart, and quite addictive. It was my first lamb tartare, and the best of any kind I’ve had in four decades by a long way, which is a reflection both of the standard, slightly humdrum article, and the excellent version produced here.
The scallops were next level. Firstly, they were served in their shells, which is just so pleasing, particularly to those of us who never grew up. Secondly, they were seared with their iodine-rich orange corals, the best bit to some of us, which only a fool would throw away; but it does happen. The real mastery, though, was to combine the scallops, the sweetest of all shellfish, with a deeply savoury ‘charcuterie’ sauce and what looked like strips of some air-dried ham – Bayonne or Parma perhaps.
If you love scallops but want to try something that better balances their tendency to one-dimensional sweet meatiness, this is it. When you go through a round one this good, you can relax, knowing that you’re on a high plateau and you’re staying there.
Classic mains, done exceptionally well
And so it went. After the bell, Greg chose lemon sole with beurre blanc and samphire, as traditional and un-messed-about-with as you like. You always know what you’re getting with this one: the joy of lifting the fillets away from the backbone and dipping them in the butter, then flipping and repeating on the dark side is a pleasing and timeless act.
The other main, roast belly pork with bacon in butter beans, was again predictably wonderful. The side dishes were ‘creamy mash’ and grilled brassicas. I’d never have ordered the mash (I’m saving it for end game, as I suspect I’ll get a lot in the old people’s home, or prison if I get there first), but I’m glad to have tried this version. It would be better described as ‘pommes purée’, such was its silkiness. It was very good, and filling, as pub food ought to be.
The mixed brassica side had that deep, smoky flavour that you only get from a serious kitchen.
A classic dessert to finish
Pudding, the only course we chose for ourselves, was crème brûlée with shortbread biscuits for dipping, a nice touch. Was it good? C’mon. It was crème brûlée – royalty.
Comfort food, redefined
It’s hard, but possible, to think of this as pub food, which is what it claims to be. If we’d followed the prawn cocktail vol-au-vents with the roast chicken or the steak, it would have felt like an impossibly upscale British pub meal.
Then there’s the one that got away: the beef cheek and bone marrow pie, which is doubtless everything the dreadful ‘steak and ale’ pie wants to be when it grows up. Wine choices are seriously grown-up too. Greg chose us a dry, oily southern French white to broker a compromise between the fish and pork.
Overall impressions? The Crazy Goose is aiming for cosy comfort food, which is what pub dining is all about – or should be. All too often, you can swap the word ‘comfort’ for ‘predictable’. Everything we ate that night had a DNA as old as anyone alive today, which was unusual; and it was lit up from the inside by the quality of the cooking.
Eating deep, rich soul food that connects us to the lost country of our memory, to some of the good things we have let go along the way, was unexpectedly emotional. Traditional cooking has long, long been due a comeback. The Crazy Goose can only help with that movement.
