The Ruff Guide To Eating Out – Dec 2023
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Anything and everything
The Ruff Guide To Eating Out
Who knew there were so many dog-friendly restaurants in our city? Well, Maya the Romanian rescue for one. As we tucked into our dinner one wet and windy evening at Murmur, we were surprised to find a beautiful but rather anxious dog on the next table. “Don’t look her in the eye and she’ll be fine”, smiled Mum.
Look, we’re dog people and a nervous dog on a couchette in one of our favourite restaurants is always going to be fine with us. But while we would normally have focussed by now on the delicious fish caught only this morning by Brighton’s own day boat fishermen, we found ourselves in a curiously unBritish chat about dogs. Maya, our new friends told us, was already able to use a word board to tell her new parents how she was feeling.
“OMG,” squeaked our Gen Z daughter, ‘Do you follow Bunny on Tik Tok?” Of course they did. Bunny, it seems, is the talking dog who presses audio buttons to formulate whole sentences in order to communicate to her owners. “Maya kept us up all night last week”, said her Dad weakly, only slightly failing to follow the party line. “She was pressing ‘tummy’ ‘hurt’ ‘outside’ ‘medicine’ until I had to put a pillow over my head.” Why he didn’t just let her out, he didn’t say.
It wasn’t like this in France. For three whole weeks this summer, we feasted on dog friendly vibes. From bites in bars in balmy squares to Michelin starred 12 coursers, Pickle, our 13-year-old Collie Cross was more than welcome. Even in the brasserie at the hypermarche where we sheltered from the rain while charging the electric car (again), Pickle was invited in. “C’est normale” said the waiter, giving him a bowl of water before we could ask. Dogs in France sit under tables and are mostly seen and not heard, although the waiters Pickle met generally stopped for a little ear rub and a chat. Only once did we find a giant poodle sitting on his Dad’s lap. But they were Dutch.
And, as it turns out, it’s pretty normal in Brighton too. Maybe dogs are welcome all over the country and we’ve just never dared to ask. So, we’ve decided to send Pickle out as chief reporter for a brand-new column for the Whistler, The Ruff Guide to Brighton and Hove (see opposite page). He’ll be marking Brighton restaurants on the quality of the welcome, the offer of a water bowl and the quality of the meat. Of vegan and vegetarian fare, it’s all about the meat taste. I did tell him that that’s not always the point, but, well, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. First up, Kusaki in Preston Circus…
Gilly Smith
Joloff Cafe – A refuge from the madness
Refugees often get a bad press here. You might have noticed. Like most people, we find it really dispiriting, but there are always good people doing good things. And if good things involve hummus… what’s not to like?
We’re lucky here in this part of the world – there are fantastic organisations such as The Launchpad Collective who are doing real things to help refugees with real tools such as work and language. And here at the West Hill Hall, the every Wednesday morning The Jollof Cafe takes over and… What’s the Jollof Cafe?
“It’s a project of the Sussex and refugee migrant self support group. It’s run for and by migrants, refugees, asylum seekers. It’s free for those who can’t afford it and £5 or whatever they feel like for those who can which enables people who can’t afford to eat there to do so. Each week we’ve got different chefs and it’s a lovely atmosphere and great food.”
I’m talking with Catherine Brown, and Catherine’s long been on the side of the good guys. “I used to work with Voices in Exile and now volunteer with Sussex refugee and migrant Self Support Group which Jollof is part of”.
“We started in 2017. We used to be at The Cowley Club in London Road, and then after Lockdown we opened up at the West Hill Hall. It’s a little treasure, a bit hard to find, but a treasure.
“The food is always vegetarian, and often vegan. It’s a welcoming, safe space where the migrant community can invite the local community in rather than the other way around. They’re always recipients of charity. Here, it’s the other way around.
And who are the biggest communities? “We used to do a lot of work with the Syrian community, and I was surprised at how many Syrian people that were here. Yes, so still Syrians but a lot less coming than about six or seven years ago. We’ve got some brilliant members of the group who cook for us when they when they’ve got time off from their English lessons. There are Kurds from Iran and Iraq. Where else? We got people from Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea…”
And what’s Jollof? “Jollof rice is a West African dish. When we first started, we had a lot of West Africans cooking for us and we had Jollof all the time. It’s a peanutty spicy sauce and the rice is cooked in the sauce. It’s usually with meat, but because I’ve only had it at the Hall I’ve never had it with meat”.
I’m guessing the food at your place is pretty good then. “It’s pretty damn good. Yeah, I get to eat very well. I think Syrian is probably my favorite.”
Syrian food is… I know about Syrian food. I pride myself on my hummus making abilities and, maybe foolishly once said to a Syrian guy I knew that I made good hummus. So we had a “Hummus Battle”. I told Catherine and as I told her, I heard her laugh.
“You lost, I’m guessing”.
“Lost isn’t the word. It wasn’t that close”.
Review: Dexys at The Dome
We’d just finished another year at Manchester Polytechnic and summer was staring at us. Before heading to our respective homes, a few of us went up to Newcastle for the weekend to visit a friend. We saw a sign “BBC Radio One Roadshow with Dexys Midnight Runners”. What to do? We were very cool, I mean very cool, and a Radio One Roadshow? Seriously not cool. It was probably introduced by Richard Skinner or, I don’t know, Peter Powell or something. And it was in a tent. I know. A Radio One gig in a tent. You’d think we were going to see Nik Kershaw or maybe Howard Jones. But it was Dexys and we loved Dexys. So we went. And it was extraordinary. It was so extraordinary it was released as a CD in 1995. The shock of the power of the horn section, the passion and emotion of the songs, the everything of Kevin Rowland. Back then, pop music was about synths, about artifice, about dressing up as a pirate or a Pierott clown. Dexys were about horns, about soul, about passion.
That was June 1982 and Kevin’s outfits have changed a few times since then, but the fashion for passion has never wavered. Time’s passed but they – he – are still extraordinary. And last night at The Dome was just as extraordinary as ever.
A homecoming gig – Kevin lives down here, don’t you know – this was as much a celebration as anything – celebrating the history of the band and the audience, celebrating the songs, celebrating survival. The night was split in two halves: the first given over to the new album, “The Feminine Divine”, the second a run through of the old. Playing your new album which probably no one’s heard for the first hour of a gig, it’s asking a lot and is at the same time fantastically ambitious and arrogant. So far, so Dexys.
“The Feminine Divine” is as ever a step away from the expected which is, I guess, the expected. A treatise on Kevin’s relationship with women and how it’s changed, played live it’s stripped back, theatrical (between each song there was a ‘dramatic scene’ between band members Rowland, Jim Patterson, Sean Read and Michael Timothy), less horn more synth. Dressed in a dark blue pantalon suit, white beret and striped t-shirt (you know these things are important), Rowland held the stage, his voice at 70 still really strong and still carrying that familiar plaintive soulful plea.
While the new songs held up, the place really came alive during the second half when the lights came up, the horns came out to play and, standing on the balcony, he started up
“I won’t need to think of nice things to say,
I don’t want to want this way anymore,
Shh now and hear comes silence,
from this comes strength I promise”
which led, naturally, to
“You’ve always been searching for something…” from 1982’s “Plan B”. And on it went. “Geno”, “Jackie Wilson Said” (complete with backdrop of Jocky Wilson), “Until I Believe In My Soul” through to the much loved but rarely played “Tell Me When My Light Turns Green”. As the lights came up, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
photo: Sandra Vijandi
Night Shift bar
They’re a smart lot over at the Flour Pot bakery in Seven Dials. Marching steadily but sassily across the city, from Sydney Street in 2014 to Elm Grove to Fiveways, zigzagging back to First Avenue, they sashayed in to Seven Dials in 2017. Bringing us unbeatable bread and a coffee culture that spread onto the pavements and into a reclaimed secret garden, wherever the Flour Pot went, we followed.
They were even among the leaders in the hospitality revolution during Lockdown, swivelling their business plan when all doors were closed to scoop up the smallest but greatest local suppliers – Gunn’s the Florist, Smors hummus, cheese from the Cheeseman and Curing Rebels charcuterie – in a genius home delivery service.
And so when Small Batch was suddenly gone, leaving landlord Pembertons a vacant space until October when they can issue a new lease, Flour Pot boss, Oli Hyde spotted an opportunity. “I decided that if we could put together a crack team of local businesses, The Flour Pot, Curing Rebels, Curio Wines, a local artist called She Paints, we could create a collaborative space here.” In partnership with Pembertons, Night Shift was born. “We asked ourselves; ‘what would the Flour Pot be if it was open at night?’” he said. “I don’t know what the future holds, but it seemed an absolute crying shame having such a site like this empty for that period of time.”
When we met, Night Shift had been open just three days, but already the locals were pouring in. Oli, who started his hospitality days at Terre a Terre in the 90s, moving to Sam’s in the heydays of the Dials, through clubs like Audio and Excape and on to the Mesmerist, knows how a thing or two about the night shift. “I think this is a lovely idea’ he says. “ It’s just early evening Wednesday to Saturday, closing at 10 or 11, depending on the numbers, and offers a local British charcuterie, a terrific wine list and local art on the walls.”
Gilly Smith
The Whistler 