The Chilli Pickle’s Alun and Dawn Sperring are two of Brighton’s most intrepid restaurateurs and have been travelling through South Asia on a quest for adventure and the best food they can find. They tell Gilly Smith what treasures they brought home.
With kids, Fletcher, now 12, and Stanley, 18 in tow, Alun and Dawn Sperring have spent most of their lives exploring India, from the crazy bazaars of Old Delhi to the hill stations in the western ghats to the tropics in the south and the deserts of Rajasthan.
Much of what they’ve found over the years has made its way onto the menu of their restaurant, the award winning, OctoberBest favourite, Chilli Pickle, now back in its original home in the Lanes. The Laal Maas, a fiery mutton curry comes from an early trip to Jaipur, its deep red chilli colour and a robust taste of whole garam masala served with hot red pickled onions and naan. The lassi, a traditional yoghurt drink seasoned with cardamom and signature tasty milk skin on top, they found served in a clay pot which, once finished, is smashed.
Now they’re back from their latest trips through Kerala, Varanasi, Chennai in India and Lahore in Pakistan with new flavours and stories to tell.
“When we visited Lahore this time, it was all about the nose to tail eating and meat cooked over fire on the streets”, Alun tells me. “We’d go for an early breakfast meal of paya which is goat’s trotter soup, which they’ve cooked overnight for the locals who start work at around 5am. It’s a wonderful way to start the day, a big dose of collagen and protein in one go. They finish the vat and then they start cooking all over again through the night.”
Paya, Chilli Pickle-style isn’t quite the whole trotter, but its broth, cooked down into a sticky consommé, is going down a storm in Brighton. Alun and Dawn pride themselves on offering the real South Asian taste that they’ve found on their countless adventures. Their spicing is honest and unapologetic, and they’re happy to replicate some of the more challenging dishes; even the brain curry has been on the menu. But will the Katakat make it to the specials? “Ooh that was good”, he sighs. “It’s street food that’s a bit like the Japanese Tepanyaki but made with goat testicles chopped up with mixed spice, green chilli and butter.”
I asked him how he can recreate the rich eating experiences of India and Pakistan, the throngs of local workers in the vegetarian canteens, or messes, of industrial Madras, or the unruly crowds at Kebab Corner in Chennai, and the calm of the house boats of Kerala where flat fish is a must. Answer: they don’t. The taste is enough to transport anyone who dreams of India. “We loved the kebabs in Chennai,” says Alun. “We now do the Malai chicken kebab which is topped with a spicy rich cream drizzled with butter and spiked with cardamom and kewra. It’s another level. We accompany all our kebabs with razor thin onion salad with a loose spicy green chutney, so we’re accompanying all our kebabs on the menu that way now.”
The indigenous Keralan pomfret is simply replaced with local plaice in our Kettuvallam Whole Plaice Fry”, he tells me. “It’s just rubbed with a really spicy marinade, ginger, chilli powder, awain seeds, rice flour, fresh lime curry leaf and fried dry and served with a lovely punchy ginger chutney and tempered coconut rice. And it makes a lovely side lunch or dinner special.”
Look out for the Nihari keema kulcha from Lahore with marrow bone gravy, a flatbread stuffed with beef Koobidah and served with a deliciously unctuous sticky spiced marrow bone gravy mopped up with stuffed flat bread.
l The Chilli Pickle – 6-8 Meeting House Lane, BN1 1HB
01273 442893
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