Andrew Kay: Dines Out

Where it’s @

I first met chef Isaac on the stage of the Live Food Show in the Brighton & Hove Food & Drink Festival, and I was blown away by the inventiveness of his food, his excellent demonstration skills and his precision and immaculate working process. These are all factors that I am seeking when I try a new restaurant and a new chef, important yes, but not as important as how the food tastes and how satisfying the whole dining experience is.

Isaac delivers on every level and a few weeks ago I was to see and taste that completely. Isaac@, the rather odd name of his restaurant is in a tiny space in the North Laine that in a former life was an office. How he has managed to fit in a restaurant and kitchen, and a pretty impressive brigade of chefs, is a miracle. But as miracles go, it’s minor. The food he is creating is a miracle on the grand scale, water into wine at the very least, making the blind see or the lame walk even.

It’s a tasting menu, with no choices, you are buying into a dining experience and one that I urge you to try.

“I could have gone home happy with just a loaf of either bread tucked under my arm”

I love good bread but often fear that it will fill me up too soon. Isaacs shallot brioche and treacle bread was so good that I did not care, and I could have gone home happy with just a loaf of either bread tucked under my arm.

There was course after course, a celebration of carrot that restored my love of carrot. There was stone bass with Alexander buds, foraging worth foraging for. Succulent pink pork as tasty as any pork I have ever tasted. An apple dessert that somehow managed to capture that first bite into the best apple memory you have coupled with memories of childhood funfairs.

In fact fun and memories play a major part in the experience that is Isaac@. You may also be wondering at why I have not given fuller descriptions of the dishes. The reasons are simple, the dishes are simple expressions of great ingredients. Not simple in their execution, far from it, there is clearly a lot of skill at play here. Secondly, the menu is an ever changing feast of seasonal and local produce. What I had is unlikely to be what you have, except perhaps the beautiful bread. I urge you to go see, taste and enjoy.

Head Office, 2 Gloucester Street,
Brighton, BN1 4EW, 07765934740, www.isaac-at.com