They say you always remember your first oyster. Some of us remember our first Dover sole ‘a la meunière’ too…a snapshot from a visit to English’s in the mid-1980s with my mother, a time when Brighton’s fame rested briefly on the shaky twin pedestals of dirty weekends and a bomb in a hotel.
Returning there this May, it looked established and content, spilling out of its 200-year-old ex-fisherman’s cottages onto the street; and the sole was still on the menu. Emanuele, a relative newcomer with just 15 years at English’s, sits my wife and me on stools in what is now the only oyster bar in Brighton. He confirms that the Dover sole has never left the menu.
Churchill’s eaten here a few times; he’s probably had it (“I’m not sure – I’ll ask the owner if he remembers” is the priceless official reply). No doubt Charlie Chaplin, Judi Dench and Julie Walters have had it too. And almost certainly the debonair, mysterious Mr Wright, aged 92, who has lunched here every Wednesday at noon for the past 60 years. It’s kept him alive, he says.
The Last Oyster Bar
Emanuele gives us rock oysters from West Mersea and Jersey. Both were brimming with the necessary vigour in saltiness, mineral and sweetness, and lacking any hint of ‘milkiness’, despite the warm spring we’ve had: with a glass of Rathfinny bubbly grown 20 miles to the east in the rolling downs, we are ushered into the promised land.
In the dining room, we share first courses of a crab and lobster bisque, and tuna tataki with truffle ponzu. The first is a classic dish of the sort hard to find in Britain these days: a lighter, more delicate version of the very dark, powerful, shellfish soups found on Mediterranean coasts. It’s classy, grown-up stuff, a little rite of passage for anyone interested in classic seafood.
The second is an example of English’s more modern offerings, basically tuna carpaccio with a truffle-infused soy-citrus dip. It’s delicately meaty and complex. The two that got away were Pernod-grilled oysters and sustainable caviar blinis. Next time…
Swoonworthy Hot Plateau
After reluctantly letting more possibilities go for the main course (lobster thermidor, you old roué… we’ll meet again), it was time for one of English’s big hitters, the hot plateau de fruits de mer… and here it came!
A headrush of expensive, wild, local fish, piled high on a tall platter, the sort of thing where you gasp and swoon when it arrives: there are grilled prawns, battered oysters, seared scallops, mussel-and-clam mariniere, halibut, monkfish and a whole, grilled seabass.
This stuff shouldn’t be complicated, but my God, do some people get it wrong. The usual pitfalls are an acidic, salty mariniere, underdone prawns, overdone fish and lack of heat while searing the monkfish.
The English’s way is how it should be: a riot of smoky, crispy skin, meaty white fish and sweet explosions of shellfish. It came with melted garlic butter and tartare sauce (which we initially feared, as you might, the knock on the door of a long-lost relative come to stay). We should have had faith: this was no white, vinegary mayonnaise hell with bits of cornichon straining at the meniscus, but a lightly granular, well chopped dipping sauce, something like a rich salsa verde.
The Catch (there’s no catch!)
The seabass, Britain’s most beleaguered edible fish since it took that heavy crown from salmon three decades ago, was a revelation, a surprise star of the show, equal to the halibut and rivalling the monkfish. Seabass is common off the East Sussex coast, where it comes into shallow water to hunt the mackerel around this time of year. (Those anglers you see off Brighton beach in their motorboats in summer? Seabass is the quarry they crave.) There might have been a bread roll involved in this feverish episode. I can’t remember, as I was levitating by that point.
Locality is a big thing for English’s, as it is for many places these days, and rightly so, but they don’t push it too hard at you, with menu descriptions that tell you the postcode of the razor clam that was pulled out of the sand five minutes ago. To paraphrase Elizabeth David, if you go to somewhere like English’s, you assume that you will get the best there is; to harp on about it is undignified.
Elegance and Quality Rules
And that effortless, gentle dignity is English’s all over. It’s Brighton’s oldest restaurant, the city’s own answer to Rules in London or La Tour d’Argent in Paris, a cut above those serving the weekend warriors working their way through tasting menus in search of the most novel concept.
To illustrate it, while we are demolishing a ruby chocolate and pistachio-topped tiramisu for pudding, we overhear the woman at the next table (late 20s, French and stereotypically chic) order two oysters and a double espresso… for pudding… a move so audaciously cool that we’re thrilled, if upstaged, to be in the same room where it happened.
Outside, this little oasis of white linen, sparkling shells and heady smells continues under big white, square umbrellas on the terrace. It’s so accidentally Mediterranean that you feel you’re on holiday, albeit on the one rainy day; not that anyone cares. It’s time to go, but not before spotting Poire William and eau de vie de framboise among the digestifs. If you know, you know.
As well as this year’s landmarks (80 years in the same family, and don’t forget 60 years of lunches for Mr Wright), English’s is celebrating recent victory in the BRAVO awards for best Brighton restaurants: eighth overall and third for wine: we forsook usual Picpoul and were amazed by a dangerously likeable, cool, dry Catalonian customer called De Montsant Pinyeres, served by our ever-delightful waitress. But you don’t go here for an education in wine and seafood, or to soak up the easy sophistication. You go to English’s because it’s seen a thousand rivals rise and fall, and two world wars. You come here because you’re paying a visit to the boss.
Contact: 29-31 East Street, Brighton BN1 1HL, Tel: +44 (0)1273 327980, englishs.co.uk
Opening: noon-10pm (last orders), from Tuesday to Sunday. Special offers (including BYO) on Mondays, open noon-9pm (last orders)
Accessible: English’s can accommodate (and welcomes) wheelchair users, with a clearly signed ramp
Allergies: a full list of ingredients is available, along with gluten-free options, with most of the delights (fish!) naturally gluten-free.
Family-Friendly: the very affordable kids’ menu has the usual school dinner stuff, but also mussels and seabass too, for more adventurous young diners.
ends
