Doctor’s orders: The Medicine Chest

Andrew Kay gets his prescription filled at The Medicine Chest in Hove

Tucked snuggly just off Western Road you will find The Medicine Chest. It’s a building with a history. In recent years it has been a vegetarian restaurant and venue and in the past a church of sorts. Now it is a bar and restaurant that neither preaches the word of God or a meat-free lifestyle. It’s taken me rather a long time to get there and, now I have been, I regret my tardy behaviour. I was unsure what to expect. From the outside little is given away, the outward appearance giving the impression of a Victorian illusionists prop.

Inside it is a warren of candle-lit stairs and corners. In the basement the bar specialises in tinctures, home concocted and used with great efficacy in a list of rather good cocktails. I chose well and it certainly had the desired effect, knocking all the sharp corners off what had been a very spikey day.
The restaurant is on the upper floor in what must have been the main church and the look is quirkily eclectic, the medicine theme there but not in an oppressive way.

The menu has no medicinal references, which I was relieved to find – you can, after all, take a thing too far.

“I could taste it properly because it did not arrive refrigerator cold but at room temperature”

Mr R started with a bowl of extremely good cream of celeriac soup. I had a taste and it was good, packed with flavour but also velvet smooth. It was also a proper portion in a soup plate which I very much approve of.

I could not resist the ham hock terrine. I know that it is the starter of the moment but I had a very meat head on and it fitted my mood. It arrived looking delightful but the real treat was that I could taste it properly because it did not arrive refrigerator cold but at room temperature. I know all about food hygiene, I need to in this job, but fridge cold food tastes of nothing. We both also raved about the excellent home-baked rolls and good butter.

Unusually I bagged first choice from the main course leaving Mr R to go second. He decided to have the roast beef fillet, and he was not disappointed. Nor should he have been, it was a very generous plate of food that, despite the size of the steak, still managed to look elegant. In fact, it looked rather exotic, strewn as it was with vegetables and mushrooms and trailed with two very good sauces. It kept him quiet and smiling for some time.

I had, of course, chosen the roast venison. Autumn is game season and as soon as I can I start to eat it. This was pretty damned fine, lean, full flavoured and tender. It came with buttered kale, delicious but perhaps more appropriately it should have been billed at kaled butter. A parsnip puree was not the slight smear that one has come to expect from chefs who seem obsessed with smearing food across plates. It was a substantial side dish and rather defeated my side order of rosemary scented chips.

I was not sorry that I had ordered them, I thought they were delicious, and so did the ladies at the next table who also tried some of mine.

Puddings seemed to take a long time to arrive but when they did I realised why. I had ordered a lemon tart and it comes to the table in an individual portion in which the citrus custard has been baked to order. It was wonderfully deep in flavour and unctuous in texture, and the raspberry and mint sorbet was excellent too. Mr R went for the dark chocolate marquise with white chocolate and lavender ice cream in a brandy snap cone. It really did look like a fun dessert but the flavours were very grown up indeed.

With starters from £5.95 to £7.50, main courses starting at £11.95 and puds around the £6 mark, The Medicine Chest is serving very fine food at pretty affordable prices. Most of the elixirs in the cocktail menu are around the £7 mark, par for the course these days but way above par in both execution and content. This is the kind of medicine I would happily take as prescribed.

The Medicine Chest Restaurant and Bar, 51-55 Brunswick Street East, Hove,
BN3 1AU, 01273 770002, www.themedicinechest.co.uk