Petit Pois – a new Brighton culinary star is rising

Frogs' legs

If The Salt Room gave us a superb dinner last Sunday, our first meal in Brighton during this particular tour of duty had come 24 hours earlier at Al Fresco.

The menu at this Brighton legend has been modernised and lightened, which is all to the good, and while not without flaws – including, but not limited to, my bugbear of OTT portion sizes – they gained our custom essentially because of rudeness elsewhere.

Having only just arrived and got organised, we’d thought to go and have fish and chips on the prom. Now The Regency may be another local legend, but that’s primarily because it’s not as bad as most excuses for fish and chips that are served on England’s south coast.

Stuffed vegetables

It simply cannot compare with what we ate in Scarborough in 2001 or even the German ode to “a great British tradition” that we consumed with relish in Travemünde in 2014, yet it clearly suffers from a vast dose of arrogance.

On Saturday, it was rammed, so we asked the maître d’ if he had space.

Clearly channelling the rudest French waiter stereotype that he could muster, he enquired whether we had a reservation (who books for a chippy?) then scoffed and pointed us to a large queue outside a side door where “the naughty boys” had to wait.

Suffice it to say, he didn’t see a penny of our money during the week.

Ice cream and sorbet

But thankfully, we managed to wrench ourselves east of West Street, taking us beyond our usual patch and his rudeness.

On Monday night, on the back of a colleague’s recommendation, we booked for Petit Pois on Ship Street, a new French tapas eatery that had only been open for eight days.

We picked a selection of dishes between the two of us.

To a bowl of olives and a plate of bread and very nice butter, with tapenade and aîoli, we added salt cod fritters with a spicy sauce; frogs’ leg goujons with a garlic and parsley butter; chips and a béarnaise sauce; duck breast with celeriac dauphinoise, and little stuffed vegetables with a tomato sauce.

Olives

The frog was superb – delicate and so moist. If you haven’t eaten frog, the taste is as little like a sort of gamey chicken.

The salt cod fritters were also excellent – light and moist.

The courgettes, peppers and small onions, stuffed with a delicate mushroom and herb mixture, were superb.

The duck breast was lovely – properly pink with delightfully crisp skin – while the celeriac dauphinoise was quite simply divine.

The Other Half finished with a café gourmand; I opted for a combination of vanilla ice cream with blood orange sorbet.

Halibut

Oh, this was very good indeed.

The cooking is excellent; the ingredients fresh and of high quality.

There is a nice wine list – no telephone directory, but some very good and interesting choices.

Service is friendly and knowledgeable; décor is simple, modern and clean, yet warm and very pleasant.

So much was this all the case that, on Thursday evening, wandering along the seafront in the duck, in search of food after a reception, we suddenly thought: ‘why eat something for the sake of it down here when we could nip up the steps and go back to Petit Pois if it’s open?’

We did – it was open and we enjoyed it every bit as much the second time around.

Snails

We partook once more of those very good salt cod fritters, also opting for excellent snails that were far more than an excuse to consume copious amounts of butter, garlic and parsley.

Then there was a halibut dish that came with potato duchesse, broccoli stems and a seaweed hollandaise.

A tarte fine of tomatoes, courgette, aubergine and rocket gave us a very pleasant side of vegetable and we welcomed more of the bread.

I finished with a trio of crèmes brulées – that’s right: three delightful mini brulées – and mini, mini madeleines, while The Other Half had a tarte tatin.

Brulées

Petit Pois is very new, but goodness, it’s also very good and is, unsurprisingly, already picking up a very good buzz.

On the basis of this visit, it deserves to become another Brighton legend.

And finding a new – and not just to me – eatery of such quality in Brighton gives me renewed hope in the state of British food.

Petit Pois is also open for lunch, from noon until 3pm, with the lunchtime set menu costing £9.50 for two courses and £13.50 for three.

To find out more – and to salivate over the menus – visit petitpoisbrighton.co.uk. It’s also on Facebook at www.facebook.com/PetitPoisBrighton/.

A French country kitchen – in Hackney?

Tiles from Collioure

Television occasionally teaches you genuinely useful things – even when you don’t necessarily expect it to.

The limits of aspirational telly for The Other Half and myself is Grand Designs, the programme about people who build their home, under the watchful eye of the charming Kevin McCloud.

Mind, I say “aspirational”, but it never ceases to amaze how you can build a gorgeous home for considerably less than the going rate of a ready-made, small flat in London.

Perhaps that tells us something about ... something.

But if one thing is clear from regular viewing, it’s that, unless you have the expertise, don’t project manage the job yourself.

Two years ago, we had the bathroom done while we were away.

We moved into our home, a housing association new-build block of 12 flats, 19 years ago.

Being on low incomes, we were incredibly grateful to be able to escape escalating private rent – although at this point it’s only fair to say that our landlord never ripped us off, and was incredibly understanding when we had payment problems caused by erratic payment.

Since low incomes was a specific factor that housing associations were attempting to address, we were appreciative of having fitted wardrobes, carpets, a fitted kitchen and bathroom – and even a rack for drying laundry – when we moved in.

But with time, things wear out. Two years ago, we had cracked tiles, bath taps that had almost seized up with limescale, flaking ceiling plaster, a wobbly toilet and a plastic shower curtain that was beyond the merely manky.

Initially, we considered just getting these individual problems remedied. But it didn’t take long to realise that, given that the bath would have to be removed in order to replace the taps, we might as well get a new one.

From there, it was but a small leap to replacing the entire bathroom.

I had an ISA that, given interest rates, was doing nothing, so we funded it that way and spent a month or so pottering around – online and on foot – coming up with ideas and then sourcing and buying stuff.

Fortunately, thanks to a recommendation, we have a gem of a local tradesman who can do work for us.

Ian, a dour – on the surface of it – Scot, is a godsend, who we can trust with the flat and who, as an added bonus, loves cats, or “The Young Ones”, as he refers to our feline trio.

Indeed, a few months ago, he volunteered to come and feed them when we were away, even when he had no work to do.

We got through the bathroom business, but after that, we looked around and saw very clearly that other work needed doing too.

The kitchen, for instance, is slowly falling apart. Ian has done remedial work to keep cupboard doors in place, but it’s not just the doors – and drawer fronts – that are splitting apart and warping; the actual frames are too, with dowels visible in an increasing number of places.

At the same time, the fridge is doing a slow dance of death.

We knew all this last year and started planning 12 months ago, having a box of lovely features tiles shipped over to us from Collioure. They will form the splashback above the new cooker.

That cooker will be the indulgence. I have plumped for an all-electric (we have no gas feed) Rangemaster – and I am already relishing the idea of what a double oven, separate grill and fifth (ceramic) hob will allow me to do.

No more Einsteinian calculations for roast dinners; no more inability to do oven-roasted, crushed potatoes (with home-grown sage) together with something that’s grilled; no more having to wait to put a pudding in, in the cold, dark days of winter, until after the main course has finished cooking.

The boons, even for a household of two, will be enormous.

Being rather old-fashioned, we opened an extra savings account last year to fund it, along with removing yet another ISA that was mired in interest-rate slumber.

But even with finance sensibly in place, it didn’t take long before we realised that a repeat of the process for the bathroom was simply not possible.

It’s one thing to pick a bathroom suite and some tiles; it’s another entirely to sort out units for a kitchen, with all the measuring and so on that that entails. So we asked Ian to project manage.

He, knowing outlets other than B&Q, Homebase and Wickes, has measured, taken our list of ‘this is the sort of thing we’d like’, and come up with solutions that we now realise will revolutionise the kitchen.

And stereotypes exist for a reason. Ian hates to see clients spending any more than they need, and has sourced a number of things in a way that is cheaper than our own original ideas.

CGI of the new kitchen

The big issue was always going to be storage – and our current cupboards are a nightmare. Being a short arse hardly helps, but cleaning out what’s there has been decidedly difficult, even with a step ladder, simply because stuff gets stuck at the back or, worse, in impossible-to-reach corners.

As an example, I found three bottles of soy sauce on Saturday, when I expected only one.

And in one of the aforementioned corners was an ancient, opened box of cat biscuits, and a tin from prehistoric times containing the remains of a packet of cream crackers.

It is, then, the perfect opportunity for a major clear out. Given all those corners and high shelves, I had no idea just how many jars for preserving and stock I had – but it was enough to save some and still fill three bags for recycling.

We have timed this for when we’re away. There is no practical way you could have a kitchen – or a bathroom – done while you were in residence.

The contents of the freezer are gradually being used up – a pack of lamb kidneys on Sunday, my final jar of homemade chicken stock the day after, the blackcurrant sorbet on an indulgently regular basis.

To be honest, I didn’t realise just how much storage space we have got, but this will transform how we use it. At the moment, my small collection of best crockery is bubble-wrapped between uses, and sits on the top of a bookshelf in the bedroom: no cupboard can accommodate it.

Just working through this means we’re going to substantially rethink where and how we store what, to utilise spaces that are less easily accessible for things we don't need often.

Of course on a less practical side, there is pleasure in considering the look.

A few years ago, there was an advert for one of the big chains where they asked you to go in for a consultation, taking one item from your kitchen that most represented you. I’ve often wondered what I’d have taken – and often concluded that it might be an olive oil drizzler.

It probably wouldn’t have been possible to take the shelf/dresser unit that we bought some years ago on Tottenham Court Road, which turned out to be French, and is a lovely piece of proper, wooden furniture and now holds, as well as many cookery books, pretty pots from Collioure and a traditional, semi-glazed earthenware cassoulet pot from Carcassonne.

As I mentioned earlier, we have feature tiles from Collioure – together with matching cupboard and drawer knobs – so there was already a bit of a theme.

The unit fronts will be off-white, with a subtle look of planking. The awkwardness of the corner will be tackled by, above, double doors opening from the centre and, below, a carousel that will rotate out.

There will be a tall, narrow cupboard that will hold mops and brushes, and even a small, built-in wine rack.

The rest of the wall tiling will be an light ‘stone’ look, while there are quite pale terracotta tiles for the floor.

Paint colours I selected at the weekend: magnolia for the walls, white for the ceiling and an olive for the window sills and skirting, to give some depth. The cooker and hood will be cream, so a hint of solid colour should look good – and besides, olive green continues the developing theme.

The work surface – currently something mottled, grey and artificial, which somehow stains and is almost impossible to clean or dry properly – will instead be oak.

And then there’s the small matter of the sink.

I can’t say I ever expected to find myself spending hours thinking about sinks – let alone taps – but when the first computer-generated images were placed in front of us by Ian, with a bog standard, stainless steel sink and drainer combined, it started me mulling.

And after I lost four days of my life last month to exploring the vexed question of how to produced a pre-paid envelope for a reader survey, sinks and taps proved to be a pleasure.

The current draining board is a pain, since it doesn’t do the absolutely essential job of draining. So instead of repeating this, we’re plumping for a Belfast sink with slightly retro taps – both of which, thanks to Ian’s canny eye, will be cheaper than we had initially thought possible.

It won’t just look good, though: given the amount of slow cooking I do, it’ll be a great deal easier to soak and wash my big pots, without having to twist them to even get them in the sink at all.

It will also, though, be entirely in keeping with a room that, it is becoming increasingly clear, is about to become little other than a French country kitchen in the heart of Hackney.

What a thing that should be to welcome us home in late September.

I shall hang strings of garlic and Roscoff onions from the dresser once more and dive into an autumn of daubes and cassoulets and gardianes.

If you think food is food is food – think again

Utterly divine Yorkies and filling

It’s a fairly familiar moan of mine that here in the UK, far too few people really rate food highly and instead, treat it essentially as straightforward fuel, rather than one of life’s great pleasures.

A pleasure, incidentally, that taken with a dose of seriousness, would almost certainly be healthier for you than the food-as-fuel attitude that drives the punters in their millions into the supermarket ready-meal aisles for supplies of ping food.

And the same attitude reveals itself in other ways too: for instance, when people suggest that there’s no point in paying the kind of money a top-quality restaurant will charge, because, after all, ‘food is just food’.

Well no, it really isn’t.

On Friday night, with a trip to the theatre in the offing, we needed food first.

Now The Other Half and I generally like to avoid chains and franchises, and most certainly what would be called fast food joints.

When you’ve got two hours to fill, you might as well sit down and enjoy something decent.

Since we were heading to Shaftsbury Avenue, I had been considering where to eat in that vicinity. But I was struggling.

We thought about a Chinese – how about the legendary Poons, for instance?

It was agreed that that sounded like a good idea, but then I discovered that that establishment has gone the way of all flesh.

Soho is not what it once was – changing as developers move in: and for the worse, in my opinion.

We ummed and ahhed, and I trawled the internet looking for anything with consistently decent reviews, but all without finding anything remotely inspiring.

In the end, I tried out a rather different idea on The Other Half: what about an early dinner down the road at The Gilbert Scott, and a cab to the theatre after?

He readily agreed – which pleased me, since I’ve been dying for a chance to return since my own first visit 15 months ago for the set lunch, and also wanted to introduce him to this rather special place.

It would, rather obviously, be more expensive than we’d expect to pay if we’d stuck with the idea of dining nearer the theatre.

So what do you get for spending all that extra filthy lucre?

Well, you get a very great deal.

To start with, though, it’s worth pointing out that most middle-range restaurants are not cheap.

Yet what you will frequently find is that, if one course is good, the others won’t match it for standard.

What you get at top restaurants is, in essence, simple: flawless cooking all the way through.

The Gilbert Scott is no exception.

Arriving a little early on Friday, as the team was still having its pre-service meeting, we sat in the bar for cocktails – a wonderful, refreshing rhubarb and ginger sour (with vodka) for me – and popcorn.

Now popcorn is ‘in’ at the moment. And popcorn is also not something that The Other Half likes. But this was just wonderful – and I was far from being alone in chucking it into my mouth.

Not that this was just any old popcorn, mind, but very carefully flavoured. I couldn’t quite work out what the subtle smokiness was – fortunately, chef Nick Ward later explained to me that they cook it with smoked butter from their salmon supplier.

So, what was first up for dinner itself?

In an exception to any previous experience, we both had the same.

To start with, a Yorkshire fishcake with lavabread mayonnaise, and topped with a divine little sprig of ever-so-fresh herbs (chervil, dill and chives) that was far more than a careless garnish, but added a glorious bitterness to the gentle sweetness of the fishcake itself.

For our mains, it was wild pigeon, roasted with tiny onions and mushrooms, and lardons, in a truly voluptuous gravy, and poured into individual Yorkshire puddings at the table.

Now that’s great restaurant threatre, of course, but it also ensures that the pudding is as crisp as possible when it reaches the diner.

Did I say “crisp”?

Now I don't consider myself bad at Yorkies, but I have never tasted one so good – and nor had that thoroughbred Tyke himself, The Other Half. Neither, should it be added, had I ever tasted such tender pigeon.

On the side, we opted for white tenderstem broccoli and carrots cooked in tarragon and star anise.

Both were cooked to perfection – none of that ‘al dente’ means almost-raw nonsense, while the carrots were perfectly complimented by the tarragon and the warmth of the star anise.

We didn’t have the time to sit and digest, and then order a dessert – but I know that we’d both have opted for Yorkshire rhubarb posset, if we had had that time.

The Other Half could see a regional theme here that he rather liked.

In the last year or so, we’ve finally sussed that, in really good restaurants, ordering a glass of wine doesn't simply translate as the house white or red, so we picked a good white for the fishcakes and a good red for the pigeon.

The former was a Riesling ‘Brauneberger Juffer’, Kabinett, Paulinshof, from Germany’s Mosel, while the latter was a Côte du Rhône, Domaine Charvin, from France.

The Riesling in particular was superb – great bouquet, great length, great taste. It’s the same wine I’d enjoyed on my previous visit, and it was most gratifying to find that The Other Half was really impressed with it too.

The service was exemplary: friendly, attentive but never intrusive.

The dining room is a pleasure in itself.

It probably doesn’t need pointing out that we will be returning – and recommending it highly to all and sundry.

Next time, I want longer – not least because the menu itself is worth browsing over at leisure before you even get down to eating.

The food, as you’ll probably have gathered, is not the kind of obviously French-influenced cuisine that has blossomed in high-end British restaurants under the tutelage and influence of the Rouxs and Raymond Blanc, and which has massively improved at least some of the country’s restaurant scene.

But then again, Marcus Wareing, who designed the menus for the Gilbert Scott, is himself immersed in what Michel Roux Jr would call “The Classics”.

It is a menu, though, that makes you aware and proud of our British food heritage – and when such food is done like this, it is as good as anything else.

It will equally need little pointing out that it was all rather more expensive than it would have been if we had trawled around the Shaftsbury Avenue area and simply found somewhere – anywhere! – to eat.

But I hope that what I’ve done here is to illustrate exactly why, in food terms, you really do get what you pay for.

I still remember – without needing to look it up – what I ate on that first visit to the Gilbert Scott, over a year ago. I cannot recall what I ate at a small restaurant near Charing Cross just two months ago on our last visit to the theatre.

I rather doubt that either us of will find this meal to have been instantly forgettable.

And that really should tell you something.