Off The Beaten Track
Just a stone’s throw away from The Open Market, you’ll find one of Brighton’s most lauded and creatively ambitious restaurants – the kind of place that attracts visitors from far away thanks to its unique take on South East Asian cuisine. The Bonsai Plant Kitchen, launched by chef Dominic Sherriff in 2022, also happens to be completely plant-based, though you would be forgiven for not noticing straight away given how its menu includes words like “pork,” “sea bream,” and “chicken” alongside its vegetable staples.
With dark lighting, neon kana signage, and ambient soundtracks, it’s the kind of establishment that seems to transport diners deep into Tokyo’s underbelly, seating you in an off-the-beaten-track kind of spot that only the locals know about.
A Veganuary Banquet
This month, they are launching their Veganuary tasting menu, where customers can enjoy eight perfectly selected dishes for an affordable price. And it really doesn’t matter if you’re vegan, vegetarian, or a card-carrying carnivore – these dishes are packed with flavours that are guaranteed to blow your mind.
It all begins with some perfectly curated snacks: the Oi Muchim (a spicy cucumber Korean salad), plus a selection of pickles and a pair of miso-dressed baby gem lettuce with lychee and sunflower seeds – the latter of which brings an extravagant umami punch to offset the mouth-watering sours building up to it. It’s easy to tell this is the start of something exceptional.
Beside the Seaside
Though this restaurant can make you feel like you’re a million miles from Brighton, the next dish – made out of samphire, a sea vegetable that grows abundantly on our shorelines, marshy shallows, and salty mudflats – is a nice little reminder of what’s outside that front door. This small plate sees it served in a traditional Japanese style, coated in a thin batter before it’s deep-fried as tempura. The black garlic and lemon mayo served alongside makes it melt in the mouth.
Cocktails with a Twist
The tasting menu doesn’t include drinks, but it’s definitely worth having a look at the cocktail list. On the night of our visit, the options were the choco raspberry espresso martini, the kaffir rum punch, and the apple cider margarita. We decided to opt for the latter two and found ourselves amazed again at how seamlessly this restaurant is able to inject the familiar with concepts and flavours outside of the norm. To tie in with Dry January, some very inviting mocktails have also been added to the menu, such as the homemade tepache, which combines pineapple and brown sugar with cinnamon and clove and can be served warm or cold. Simply put, there’s no shortage of identity wherever you look on the menu.
The Man with the Plan
At this point in the evening, owner and head chef Dominic Sherriff introduced himself and talked us through the experiences that led to starting Bonsai Plant Kitchen. His extensive knowledge of the Brighton food scene, having worked for some of the other established vegetarian businesses, is obvious – but it’s his experiences off home soil in cities like Hội An, Tokyo, and Bangkok that have armed him with the vision and palate to create something extraordinarily adventurous.
Many of Bonsai’s dishes will feel new and exciting to even the most well-travelled of diners.
Adding to the authenticity of flavours though is the traditional bincho grill which is stacked with premium Japanese coal in the heart of the open-plan kitchen. This brings a signature smoky barbecue flavour to the dishes on their way.
The Main Event
There are two mains from the grill on this month’s tasting menu: shishito peppers with bang bang sauce and lemon, as well as oyster mushroom skewers drizzled in chilli oil.
Even the most die-hard meat-eater would struggle to find fault here – both of these dishes feature an abundance of texture, richness, and flavour.
We suspected many people wouldn’t even realise they’re eating something entirely plant-based.
The dirty rice, served with secret sauce, chives, and crispy onions, is also another one of the head chef’s secret weapons. The grains are washed roughly ten times before being steamed and seasoned, then finally blow-torched with a high-end sesame oil for the right kind of char. Truth be told, it’s as indulgent as rice can get – and in the best possible way.
The After Party
The final dish to arrive is the chai crème caramel, a dessert that tastes every bit as creamy and smooth as it looks.
It happily rounds off all the spices and flavours that came before it with an incredibly pleasing sweetness.
While this kind of flan pudding is very classic in spirit, notes of cinnamon and ginger transform it into something more exotic and enticing, but without distracting too much from the burnt sugar at the core of its aromatic profile.
Of course, with this establishment being exclusively plant-based, it’s impressive how they’ve managed to get the texture spot-on without any need for regular milk or egg.
An Experience Like No Other
As you probably already know, there is no shortage of veggie/vegan-friendly restaurants in Brighton, and we’re also very spoiled for choice when it comes to South Asian food in general. But it’s worth noting that Bonsai Plant Kitchen exists and thrives completely in its own lane of culinary brilliance.
The dishes are wildly inventive, wonderfully curated, and, perhaps most importantly of all, delicious on every single level.
It really doesn’t matter whether you are vegan or not – this is the kind of life-affirming restaurant that will win your heart and blow your mind in equal measure and it’s absolutely the place to celebrate the splendid possibilities of modern plant-based cuisine this Veganuary.
