Did someone say summer menu? Hove Place did, and we’re slathering on the sunscreen to enjoy it. The garden at Hove Place is gorgeous, with its scattering of colourful tables, well-pruned flowers, and cubbyholes in which to make your den.
The new summer menu is a pick-and-mix extravaganza, where sharing is caring and ordering just what you fancy is a personal challenge to be relished.
Things are BIG
The standard pub fare of Scotch eggs and sausage rolls is anything but standard: these monster-sized homemade babies could feed a hungry dinosaur.
The crispy-shelled Hove Place Scotch egg has oodles of juicy pork and is given extra flavour with smoked bacon, Sussex Charmer and onion chutney; while the peppered steak sausage roll, with its buttery latticed pastry, arrives with cheese, Dijon mustard and a cracked peppercorn dip. There’s no skimping on quality, taste or fillings here, kids.
Why you’ll love it
- A gorgeous garden setting
- Sharing plates made for grazing
- Properly indulgent pub classics
- Excellent cheese and charcuterie
- A menu that encourages you to stay
And can we talk about the Parmesan and truffle fries, topped with grated Parmesan and truffled mayonnaise? These are not fries for the restrained. Dive in, dip and enjoy. Beautiful.
Sharing is Caring
The deli boards are where things get serious. They are, quite sensibly, built around the idea that the best way to eat cheese and charcuterie is to order several varieties and then graze on the goodies.
We chose the Charcoal Cheddar, a mature cheddar made with activated charcoal powder, and Sussex Charmer, the award-winning aged cheddar from Sussex. Alongside came Calcot pastrami beef from Steyning and Cobble Lane garlic salami, a traditional fennel and garlic salami. Local produce is certainly on the menu.
An elaborate spread
This is the point at which “just a few small plates” becomes an elaborate spread. Bread, pickles, chutneys and crackers join the party. Someone announces that they are particularly enjoying the cheese. Someone else reaches across the table for the salami. Nobody is entirely sure which plate technically belongs to whom anymore. And that is precisely the point.
The deli boards are particularly good at this: a little bit of salty, a little bit of smoky, a little bit of tangy, and suddenly lunch has developed a plot.
At the helm is head chef Phil Bartley, whose food is built around locally produced ingredients and a clear understanding of what people actually want to eat.
The summer menu’s small plates and deli boards are particularly good for that long, lazy sort of meal where nobody is in a hurry and the table gradually fills with things that sounded too good not to order.
Slip into the leafy garden and leave hours later with a belly full of gorgeousness. We approve.
