Dines Out: Brighton’s Best

A few months ago I wrote about Best of Brighton’s top twenty, a series of awards honouring the best the city has to offer when it comes to dining. I was delighted to see that for the most part that list reflected my own opinions on where the best food currently can be found in the city.

Well now that food can currently be found in a very different way. Yes, the guys behind the awards have published a book featuring recipes by the chefs from those top twenty restaurants.

I opened my copy of this new volume with a sense of trepidation. I love to cook, I cook well my friends tell me, but I am not a chef. I wondered if the recipes from some of my favourite chefs would be as tantalising on the page as they are on the plate. The answer was clear, they certainly are, truly seductive.

If I start at the beginning it will be with chef Michael Bremner of 64 Degrees and his tuna with passionfruit and radish. Michael is well known from BBC TV’s Great British Menu, but he is also one of the star chefs on my own series International Chef Exchange which you can now see on Amazon Prime. This recipe looks great and also very achievable, lots of ingredients that I know but no specialist equipment required.

Chef Kanthi Thamma is a good friend and a kitchen star and I recently raved on these pages about his Keralan mussel moilee, little did I know that only a few weeks later I would have the secret to this fabulous dish with a recipe that for once I will follow to the very last detail, yes I like this dish that much!

The recipes from some of my favourite chefs are truly seductive

They are the tip of a culinary iceberg here, a whole range of delicious ideas, brilliantly edited by co-creator of the project Andy Lines and compiled into one scrummy volume that truly celebrates but also explains why Brighton and Hove has become so highly regarded as a culinary centre travelling to to enjoy.

With gastro tourism actually knocking heritage tourism off its long held pedestal, our city has become a number one food destination and this book highlights the 20 restaurants that have helped put it there.

The restaurants represented in the book are: 64 Degrees, Bincho Yakitori, The Chilli Pickle, The Little Fish Market, The Set, Cin Cin, Plateau, The Salt Room, Silo, Semolina, The Gingerman, Terre á Terre, Curry Leaf Café, Isaac At, The Ginger Pig, Fatto a Mano, The Urchin, The Coal Shed, Riddle and Fins and Fourth and Church.

The book retails at £25 and is available from all the top 20 restaurants, City Books, Waterstones and the BAi360 gift shop. It’s also available online at www.chefpublishing.com