The Gingerman Restaurant

For Ginger read Gold

What better way to part for the continent and four days of great food than to meet an old friend for lunch at one of our city’s finest dining rooms. I met Mr J at The Ginger Man for a much overdue meal, much overdue in every sense as it was a long time since I had dined at this much loved restaurant that was at the forefront
of Brighton’s culinary renaissance, and
some time since Mr J and I had had a chance to talk books and
catch up.
Well I am pleased to report that The Ginger Man is still firing on all four cylinders, as is Mr J, as we were about to embark on lunch of extraordinary deliciousness and style.
First out some very good bread and some very good butter, always a great opener in my books. Neither of us wanted to eat bread but both of us did, a good sign. Then came a small cup of lobster bisque topped with puffed rice, both delicious on their own but perhaps the rice a little too overpowering for the delicious soup.
Mr J then had the Crab dish – rillete, smoked salmon, oyster cracker, confit tomatoes, and red pepper gazpacho, and was more than impressed. It was a generous plate of food that managed to look stylish and at the same time satisfying. The food in so many places is now dainty to the point of non-existent, not here. I discovered this with my stunning starter of wood pigeon breast, with ham hock Scotch egg, heritage carrots, salt baked celeriac and nettle puree which could have passed as a main course in lesser restaurants. It was quite extraordinarily good and with only that dish I would have left happy.
For our main course we were both drawn to the wild sea trout with Jersey royals and wild asparagus with hollandaise. My word it was good, I mean really good. The fish was perfectly cooked and full of flavour. The potatoes had that somewhat elusive Jersey royal flavour that is so often lacking these days and the wild asparagus was not only delicious but plentiful, enough on the plate to get a real taste rather than a few fronds abandoned there as garnish. On the side came a perfect hollandaise, a hollandaise to shame the viscous gloop that so often masquerades as the real thing in lesser establishments. And it had been flashed under a flame in the classical way, a detail I know but a good one.
We drank one glass of wine, but it was a good wine, Ridgeview Bloomsbury and, having declined dessert but accepted a good espresso, we left more than happy and very impressed.
The Gingerman Restaurant 21a Norfolk Square Brighton East Sussex BN1 2PD
01273 326688
gingermanrestaurant.com