Independent on Sunday
The year on a plate

Independent on Sunday
Terry Durack

Brighton's latest gastronomic venture is so good, it could provide a recipe for the continued renaissance of British dining. And it's cheap...

By Terry Durack

If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I want to come back as a loaf of bread - so that I can live out my next life at The Real Eating Company in Hove.

Then I could be toasted and served under oven-roasted tomatoes drizzled with sweet garlicky juices for breakfast, or squashed either side of a heap of ham and salad greens to form a big fat sandwich, or served in a little balsawood basket with a rich, creamy cauliflower soup for lunch.

A relatively recent addition to the Brighton scene, this deli-coffeeshop-wineshop-cheeseshop-take-away-traiteur-café makes me go all silly because it is the way I want to eat for the rest of my life.

The name is a real statement of intent, and so is the storefront. The big glass windows are full of boxes of fat figs and strings of dried chillies and heads of garlic. The fridges are stocked with Chegworth Valley apple juice and organic sausages and the marble-topped counter is loaded with croissants and slabs of chocolate brownies. The shelves are filled with carnaroli rice, French sugar cubes, strozzapreti pasta and opal basil vinegar; while upstairs is a kitchen and a deli with a stash of Spanish and Italian charcuterie, British farmhouse cheeses and marvellous wines and olive oils.

With all this food, goodness knows how owner Helena Hudson found room to fit in enough simple, unadorned wooden tables and chairs to seat 35 people, but thank heavens she did.

The menu does not carry a single item I do not feel compelled to leap upon. There are crab fishcakes with tartare sauce, macaroni cheese, eggs benedict, home- potted shrimps with brown toast, rabbit, mushroom and ham pie, and a choice of charcuterie and cheese platters from the deli.

Not only that, but every dish that comes to the table over a leisurely breakfast and a long lunch remains imprinted in my mind as clearly as if it were a beautifully photographed cover of a Donna Hay cook book. Breakfast was two beautifully cooked fried eggs on a generous spread of hand-sliced jabugo cured ham (£12.50) eaten at a blond-wood table bathed in sunshine. Lunch starts with potted duck with piccalilli and toast (£6.50); a small glass preserving jar of moist, shreddy duck rillettes and a pot of creamy, electric yellow piccalilli forming a toast rack for three fine, large slices of toasted Poilâne, the best sourdough bread in the world. The richness of the duck is balanced by the freshness of the relish and the crunch of the toast.

A salad of soft, curdy buffalo mozzarella, small figs, peppery rocket and crisp Spanish Marcona almonds (£7) is a precociously pretty pile of goodies that is great simply because all the components are great.

But the kitchen can do more than clever assemblies of produce. A main course of cod with alubias beans, chorizo and mussels (£11) is as good as anything in London's more fashionable dining-rooms. No, it is better. The fish flakes off in lobes that look like giant, pearly scallops; the soupy juices are at once smoky and spicy; and the mussels are so juicy, they must have been plucked from the pot within seconds of their shells creaking open.

Good food deserves good wine, and the list is unpretentiously good. Try the impressive Nyetimber blanc de blanc from West Sussex (£6) as an aperitif, and follow with a buttery, spicy Alois Lageder Pinot Grigio (£19.50). The cakes on the counter are spruced up into puds, so a light and buttery blueberry cake comes with a syrupy blueberry compote and vanilla ice-cream (£5), although I am not sure a good cake needs tarting up.

Real Eating is shaping the way we should be eating in Britain. The kitchen is caring and the food is full of flavour and not too far removed from its original shape and form. The place is happy without being hippy, and casual without being slack.

Now it is time for the food knowledge to extend further than the kitchen, so that the serving staff, too, can cut a decent wedge of Parmigiano, know the brand of free trade coffee they serve, and pronounce Poilâne with a pwa, instead of with a poy.

What you get for your money is so generous that I feel churlish suggesting they could serve smaller portions for a little less, but it would mean you could finish two courses without having to walk the length of Brighton beach afterwards in penance.

Real Eating is something that most restaurants in Britain are not - it is modern. It belongs to today, instead of yesterday. The restaurant industry has a real choice: to stay mired in the dated and overly detailed French style of dining, or to seize the day and redefine itself, with a serious commitment to quality produce presented without fuss or bother in a uniquely British manner. At the moment, the gastropub movement is the closest intimation of how great real British dining could be, with rare treasures such as Real Eating providing further refinement and definition.

The combination of great food and a relaxed, modern dining style has to be the way forward. I just hope it happens in this life, and not the next.

The Real Eating Company 86 Western Road, Hove, East Sussex, tel: 01273 221 444. Breakfast and lunch daily; dinner Wed-Sat. Around £65 for two, including wine and service

Evening Standard
Londoner’s Diary

The Times
Jill Dupleix: "The Real Eating Company is good for real cooking"

ALWAYS JUDGE a new food store by how many of your favourite foods they stock. If half of your kitchen is there already, you can trust them to do well by the other half.

Lucky Hove has been queueing to get into the Real Eating Company café, bakery and deli since it opened at 86 Western Road (01273-221441) in January. It stocks some of the very best of British foods (not just because they are British, but because they are great) while also offering an equally quality-driven selection of artisanal European foods.

Now those of us not in East Sussex can play on the outfit´s new website (www.real-eating.co.uk — free delivery to most postcodes until the end of this month). Its offerings read like the ingredients list of a good recipe: chorizo sausages, Tuscan salami, sourdough bread, fat smoked anchovies and piquillo peppers from Spain and Cumbrian bacon. There are also plenty of things I didn’t know I had to have, such as Chegworth Valley's hand-pressed apple and rhubarb juice, lavender sugar from Norfolk, British fruit jellies and French wine jellies, and the summery Nyetimber rosé wine from West Sussex.

The Sunday Review - The Independent on Sunday
"We shall feed them on the beaches"

What no Thermos? No egg sarnies? In just-about-sunny Hove, Sudi Pigott joins a chic picnic – with lots of real culinary treats – by the sea

It’s Sod’s law. Arrange a picnic, organise all your friends to come along and then the weather changes. But such are the vagaries of an English summer that, come 5pm, the sun’s decided to make a belated appearance after all and it’s a fine evening for a picnic to celebrate Helena and Kevin’s first summer working and living by the sea.

For Helena, gathering the ingredients for an on-off-on picnic isn’t the familiar scramble of what’s-in-the-fridge sandwiches, hastily boiled eggs and ancient crisps. It’s an excuse for an al-fresco feast. It helps that at the start of the year, she opened Hove’s first gourmet food store/restaurant, the Real Eating Company, stocked with delicacies from small and, where possible, local producers. So Helena, a former marketing whiz, simply casts a practised eye over the fabulous charcuterie and cheese counter and, on-the-spot, devises a couple of fiendishly original sandwich combinations. Better still, chef Alex Carroll offers to make them up while Helena selects salads and swoops on an impressive-looking peach and almond tart.

Helena’s children – Freya, nine, and Peran, six – arrive chattering with Kevin who has swapped running a huge team in a top London PR agency for “a more flexible freelance consultancy lifestyle”. The kids change out of their school uniforms. Freya, soon sporting a T-shirt emblazoned FBI (subtitled Fabulous, Beautiful, Intelligent), admits she’s “seriously into clothes” and has to choose her own.

Then, armed with Real Eating Company-to-go picnic boxes, the party saunters to the beach. There’s nothing like the sea air to bring on an appetite, so it’s just a s well that Helena’s erred on the side of generosity in her picnic planning. She’s even remembered to pack plastic flutes for the Nyetimber “champagne” from Sussex, made by a former manager of the pop group Buck’s Fizz. “Not something you’d brag about,” says Kevin.

Everyone agrees they must do after-school/work picnics more often, especially early in the week when the sea front is deserted. “It’s crazy how quickly you take being so close to the sea for granted,” says Zoe, who’s had a hectic summer opening her second i gigi shop devoted to chic homeware and menswear just down the road from Helena’s place. “we’re the ones responsible for gentrifying Hove,” Zoe half jokes.

What’s on the menu?

Who’s who?
Helena Hudson, owner of the Real Eating Company (tel: 01273 221 444, or visit www.real-eating.co.uk); her husband Kevin Soady, financial PR strategist; children Freya and Peran; Helena’s head chef, a fellow London refugee, Cass Titcombe, and his children Tabitha and Oscar; Lou Malone, manager of the store, her partner Guy Carter, geography teacher; Zoe Ellison owner of i gigi boutique.

What’s the occasion?
Grown-ups celebrating first summer in business in Brighton. Children: school’s out for summer.

What’s cooking?
Ultra special Iberico ham: from acorn fed pigs; Finocciona, salami with fennel seeds; chorizo; sun-blushed tomatoes; sweet, pickled chilles. Salads: puy lentil, piquillo peppers and coriander; cucumber dill and fennel. And moreish salted Marcona almonds to nibble; posh crisps – Burt’s Firecracker Lobster. Plus, a choice of esoteric sandwiches from smoked swordfish with crème freche, fennel and lemon to cecina (Spanish cured beef), rocket and olive oil. Dessert: peach and almond tart, Valrhona chocolate and pecan brownies. And for the truly greedy, cheese including Flower Marie soft ewe’s cheese from neighbouring Lewes.

And to drink?
Apple and rhubarb juice for the children and teetotallers. Otherwise Sussex’s own fizz Nyetimber or Ballards Nyewood Gold beer.

Any style tips?
Clashing assortment of plaid picnic rugs.

Name that tune?
Squeals of delight as children throw pebbles into the sea.

What’s the gossip?
The boring homogeneity of normal shopping. Holidays – Guy is off to Kuala Lumpur, “not on a field trip with a whole class of boys for a change”.

Setting: Gourmet superstore and restaurant housed in a bright, four-storey Victorian building that used to be an art gallery. It's just a couple of minutes from the sea and a 15 to 20 minute walk from Brighton town centre.

What's it like? This is a friendly and relaxed restaurant serving a short, sharp menu with an emphasis on food that is fresh and seasonal. Display shelves are filled with sculpural gourds and pumpkins. The trendy, modern décor features lovely window seating in the upstairs deli that offers a great vanatge point over the bustling streets.

Talking point: The fantastic deli sells the best of local produce as well as exotic, handmade specialities which are sourced from all over the world. Cheese fans and meat lovers, ahoy! There's a mouth watering cheese counter and a top-notch charcuterie.

Expect to see: Actress Cate Blanchett, DJ Fatboy Slim and singer Nick Cave have all been spotted here, along with the usual Brighton trendies.

The details: The Real Eating Company, 86-87 Western Road, Hove, BN3 1JB. Call 01273 221 444 or visit real-eating.co.uk for more.

The Guardian - The Guide
"Preview Food: The Real Eating Company"

The Real Eating Company in Brighton has barely been open three hours and it is complete chaos. The till has broken down, one of the loos is out of order and our waitress has just knocked a packet of coffee off the deli counter, sending hundreds of unground beans hopping about the shop like a plague of locusts.

"It's a nightmare. Please accept this drink on the house," says the maitre d', offering all four of us in the small dining area at the back a glass of slightly unusual, but delicious Pinot Gris from New Zealand. He is both cool and calming and, although he acts as if he has worked front of house somewhere before, I suspect it was most probably in a hairdresser's, rather than a restaurant. Poor fellow, I wouldn't like his job today.

This gourmet food hall cum cafe/bar has been a long time coming to the culinary backwater that is the Brighton and Hove area. Expectations are running high. And not just among local residents. Randolph Hodgson, the owner of the Neal's Yard Dairy and saviour of British cheese, has agreed to be a supplier to the Real Eating Company. Likewise, Lionel Poilane, the man behind the most renowned bread in Paris. So, already, there are some fairly weighty names looking to see this project succeed.

The person with the highest hopes is Helena Hudson, the founder of the Real Eating Company. Fed up with working in marketing and having to follow the various farmers' markets around Sussex to get hold of the sort of local produce she wanted to use in her kitchen, Helena decided to channel her frustration by giving up the day job and starting her own shop.

The result: a sort of Borough market in Brighton, only without the traders or the market stalls. If it works, she plans to set up in Tunbridge Wells, Chichester and Guildford, too.

Number 86 Western Road is a beautiful triple-storey listed building. Formerly an art gallery, it is bright, airy and wonderfully clean. This opening day lunchtime, brimming with bushy-haired, polo-necked art students and vegetarians going bananas over all the misshapen pumpkins and squashes, it already exudes the sort of sunny seaside vibe for which Brighton has become known.

Upstairs, hardwood shelves are loaded with a kaleidoscope of foodstuffs - local honeys, jams, truffle oils, fancy mustards, Grasmere gingerbreads and odd-sounding oatmeals. On a table in the middle of the room, bowls of saffron rub shoulders with shitake mushrooms, almonds, pistachios and bay leaves.

Along the length of the back wall is a charcuterie and a cheese counter, both offering decent-sized offcuts for tasting. There are also half-a-dozen wines for sale and a few select cookery books (namely, Claudia Roden, Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson - Nigella and Jamie take note, this is hallowed ground).

Downstairs, the atmosphere is more grab and go. In the window, twisty baguettes and puffed-up brioche jostle for front-row position with trays of figs, baskets of wild rocket and more than anybody's fair share of precious Seville oranges. Two socking great stainless-steel fridges are stuffed full of pre-packaged compotes, jellies, sauces, juices and shakes - all meticulously hand-labelled, in trendy lower-case italics. But it is the smell coming from the coffee bar by the entrance that is pulling in the punters.

If ogling the stocks in the shop isn't enough of an appetite sharpener, then the long wait to be served in the Carluccio-style dining area should get you drumming your knife and fork. In the 45 minutes we have been sitting here, I have tried out two different chairs to escape the incongruous, mouthwatering smell of bacon coming from the sandwiches for sale at the bar. I am starting to feel like Goldilocks without the porridge. It seems that the hatch running to the kitchen has broken now. But, hey, this is the first day.

Locally smoked haddock and tarragon tart at £7.50 a shot had, I thought, sounded a bit steep for a starter, but because I have yet to eat good fish of any sort in Brighton, I thought I would give it a try. It arrives with a robust side order of green beans, peppers and very finely sliced red onion and is a triumph: creamy, smoky and mellow.

Likewise, the black pudding puts a big smile on my friend's face. It isn't so much the boudin itself, nor the accompanying grilled mushrooms and poached egg with hollandaise (both of which he thinks is overdoing things), but the home-made piccalilli on the side that causes the stir. I have never seen anybody get so excited by this (frankly common) chutney - it's the grain in the mustard and the crunch in the cauliflower apparently wot did it.

Roll on the revival of piccalilli then and forget everything nasty I may have said about the service. Our waitress, fully recovered from her fight with the coffee beans, offers to organise a doggy jar with the leftovers.

Success, too, for my friend with the lamb and prune pie. Round or square, puffy or flaky, pies are hot stuff at the moment, especially if they come with a twist. Served with buttery mash and a few crinkly leaves of Savoy cabbage, it is the sort of meal you'd expect a rugby player such as Jonny Wilkinson to take as the luxury item to his desert island.

But before we get too carried away, a quick word about my fried herring. This was definitely the most unpleasant thing I have eaten all year. OK, so herring is a relatively oily fish, but to first cocoon it in all that throat-clogging oatmeal - it brings tears to my eyes. The horseradish on the side had, I think, got mixed up with table two's creme fraiche and the globular cubes of roasted beetroot have the same texture and scented flavour you'd expect from a square of Turkish delight in a downmarket Indian restaurant. No matter, one of those Valrhona chocolate brownies soon puts me straight again.

"We've only just begun . . ." pipes up the background music with eerie timing as I am sitting collecting my thoughts on this unusual new enterprise. It is true, Helena and her gang have only just begun and hats off to them for trying something so new and different. Certainly, the food is generally better than anywhere else I've been to in this area. But if they want to please everybody all the time, they might run into problems. Since when did the sort of man who snacks on bacon sandwiches sit comfortably with the sort of man who snacks on foie gras and Sauternes? But, then again, since when did any restaurant in aggressively arty Brighton play the Carpenters without any uprisings?

"Brighton's numerous purveyors of 'healthy' food will be keeping a close eye on the fortunes of the city's first gourmet superstore, which opens today.

The Real Eating Company in Western Road, promises a vast selection of foods over several floors, a food book shop, a take-away counter and a 35 seat restaurant.

Owner Helena Hudson, a former advertising executive from London, hopes this multi-faceted approach to business will ensure a steady stream of customers.

She Said: 'The idea is not just reliant on one part of the business for trade.

'It's quite an accepted thing in London now because it makes good business sense.

'People like to buy into the fact they see what's being cooked, buy the raw ingredients and a recipe book and try it at home. Everybody can take something with them.'

Brighton has numerous delicatessens and an above average selection of cafés and restaurants, which pride themselves on serving good food.

But none has been on this scale and, unlike many of its rivals, The Real Eating Company has not limited itself to organic or vegetarian food.

Helena, 37, added: "One of our selling points is offering the best food from Sussex and across the world which, unfortunately, is not always organic.

'Frankly a lot of organic food is not very good.

'I know there is a real organic, hippyish culture in Brighton but I have done my homework.

'I would not have invested so much time and money into this if I did not think it would work.

'We have already had people coming into the building saying they have been waiting for something like this to open for a long time.'

The prospects look good. Already, before any advertising, more than 100 people have signed up to the company's mailing list via its web site. The new store, which will create 20 jobs, is housed in a Grade II, four-storey Victorian building, which used to be the premises of the White Art Gallery.

James Lancaster