Andrew Kay Dines Out: Stepping out to etch.

If like me you are hooked to the BBC series Masterchef: The Professionals then you will remember chef Steven Edwards who won the competition in 2013. How time flies, it seems like only yesterday but it does raise the question, what happens after winning the season. Can you remember the names of any of the professional winners? I can remember more of the amateur chefs who win the non-pro format.

With this in mind I was delighted to be introduced to Steven after he had left South Lodge and was embarking on a career in his own restaurant, and I was equally excited to be asked to make a documentary with him about that “journey” – if you will forgive me borrowing that overworked cliché from Greg Wallace.

That was over a year ago and a year filled with enormous highs in a culinary sense and a few lows in terms of finding a location to build that new career in. But now Steven has opened etch. and I have filmed the final sequences for our film which is currently in post-production and will be screened on Latest TV very soon.

I had eaten Steven’s food on several occasions, on stage at the Brighton & Hove Food & Drink Festival, at the BAi360 in its early days and at an etch. pop up. And every time it was good, very good.

But now etch. proper is open and my word, the food certainly lives up to my expectations.

It was Saturday lunchtime and I was joined by Mr L and Mr C, who has made the film with me and deserved a treat even though he is a vegetarian! Steven was of course there, he is very hands on, even bringing food to the tables and talking to diners. He insisted that we had the full six course menu and I was not going to try to talk him out of that, and we started with a glass of Nyetimber and amazing canapes that celebrated soft creamy cheese and truffle and mushrooms, perfect for even Mr C. Next came a perfect brioche glazed with Marmite. I’m not a Marmite fan but the judicious use of it here simply boosted the yeasty sweetness of the bread and this was countered by perfect seaweed butter.

Our first course, the other two do not count, was a delicious veloute of fresh peas, pea and mint jelly and pea shoots, a frothy confection that balanced the sweetness of the local peas with the fresh savoury mint. This was followed by seared sea trout and lettuce, I like the simplicity of Steven’s naming of dishes but it often belies the complexity of the cooking. This was truly divine, the fish incredibly flavoursome and the lettuce a celebration of an old favourite. Mr C took delight in a dish that featured the lettuce and kale and we looked on with envy, it looked amazing and he made all the appropriate noises to prove that it was.

Celebrated soft creamy cheese and truffle and mushrooms

We moved on to asparagus and duck egg, seasonal simplicity at it’s best, the richness of the egg, cooked and raw shaved asparagus, crisp croute and a foamy hollandaise… I have to stop as it’s making my tummy rumble with delight.

Pig dot broccoli, that’s what it was called, but the next dish was again a whole lot more than the stark title and it simply melted in the mouth. Mr C had carrot dot broccoli, and his face explained that this was cooking of the very highest order, we were certainly seeing very fine modern cooking.

So next the first of two desserts, chocolate dot rapeseed, I’m liking the dots, and what a revelation.

An amazing chocolate ganache disc with a mirror glaze was married to a rapeseed ice-cream. I know, I know, it sounds odd but it was blissfully good, rich and savoury but alongside the bitter sweet chocolate it was a perfect match. And as if one dessert of this quality was not enough Steven and his well drilled team both behind and in front of the pass delivered a second, a perky lemon curd tart with a bitter orange ice-cream, biscuit crumbs and meringue shards.

We were sated, delighted and happy. We didn’t indulge in the full flight of matched wines as we were working on the final moments of the film but the wines we did drink were extremely good. Etch. looks good too, smart, clean lined and comfortable. If I had one quibble it would be that the music, quiet as it was, did not match the average age of the diners. It’s a small grumble and should not detract from the fact that we are very lucky to have yet another fine place to dine.

etch. restaurant
216 Church Road, Brighton & Hove, BN3 2DJ
01273 227485

This will appear on Latest TV very soon.