Wild Flor
42 Church Rd, Hove
There is much to be said for simplicity. The art of leaving things the hell alone, allowing an ingredient’s inherent goodness to shine forth. Like Ortiz anchovies, for me some of the finest on Earth, subtly sweet and saline, possessed with a profoundly savoury depth.
Drench a few of those umber fillets in dense, grassy Capezzana oil, then devour with a hunk of fresh-baked, thick crusted sourdough bread. It’s not so much cooking as putting together, but damn it’s good.
Just like a plate of Iberico charcuterie from Brindisa, a robust chorizo and chewy, fat-flecked salami, anointed with a splash more of that heavenly oil. They’re the first things we eat at Wild Flor, a six-week-old restaurant in Hove.
And they bode well for the lunch ahead.
There’s a refreshing lack of pomp and pretension here at Wild Flor. The sea is but a mere saunter away, and Brighton a few minutes’ stroll down the front
There’s a refreshing lack of pomp and pretension here. The sea is but a mere saunter away, and Brighton a few minutes’ stroll down the front. Hove might once have been seen as God’s Waiting Room, but Wild Flor is anything but moribund.
Sunshine streams through the front windows. There’s a blackboard scrawled with the day’s specials, and vast bottles of port and brandy. The wine list is shortish, but interesting and intelligent and obviously put together by someone who knows more about these things than I do.
We drink icy manzanilla and eat plump fingers of slow-cooked hogget, heavy on the baa and bleat, crumbed then gently fried. And asparagus with squeaky Cheddar curds, hazelnuts, a whisper of chervil and a sharp citrus dressing.
It’s a clever dish, packed with different textures, yet all bow down to the asparagus. There’s a fine balance here, a precision and an absolute control of acidity. Ox tongue is slow-cooked until it starts to fall apart, then finished, with a sweet, smoky barbecue glaze, on a Big Green Egg.
It’s sensationally rich, yet any excess is tempered by a tart salad studded with pickles. Sweetbreads, with a crisp burnished crust, wallow in a delicately creamy, Spanish-accented sauce with a whiff of sherry, thyme and fistfuls of fresh peas.
It sings of the early days of summer, verdant, subtle and seductive.
Sunshine streams through the front windows. There’s a blackboard scrawled with the day’s specials, and vast bottles of port and brandy. The wine list is shortish, but interesting
Main courses echo the starters. There’s a pork collar, gently fatty and immaculately cooked, which has also been finished on that Big Green Egg. Chef sure likes his smoky flavours.
It reminds me of really good North Carolina barbecue. The meat comes surrounded by peeled broad beans (no short cuts in this kitchen), capers and a moat of orange-hued sauce.
Apparently it contains chorizo, but the lemon purée is so overwhelming, so pushily strident, that we can taste nothing but intense citrus. It’s not actively unpleasant, just lacks the poise and delicacy of everything else.
Brill, pristinely fresh and pristinely cooked, sits in the most delicate of spider crab broths, with strands of samphire adding their saline crunch. Tiny confit tomatoes are scattered throughout, offering mini-explosions of acidity.
It’s a gently understated dish, but expertly and knowingly put together. On the side, a generous bowl of buttered spring greens, lots of buttery Jersey Royals, and, just because it seemed rude not too, a massive portion of crisp beef-fat potatoes.
Not plain roasted, as we thought, but sliced, cooked in butter, pressed into squares, then lavished with the dripping and baked. A dribble of fierce horseradish makes sure things don’t get too heavy.
Pudding, lemon tart and Paris Brest, are fresh made, but we’re full. Sated. Done. Just enough room for a thick slice of well-kept Comte, though, and a couple of Poire Williams.
Medicinal, and all that. Front of house is run by the owners, charming and chatty. All many miles removed from the slipper-clad, Zimmer frame-wielding Hove of popular imagination.
‘We’re trying to improve Hove together,’ says Faye Hudson, co-proprietor, talking of the other new restaurants that surround them. Well priced, mainly excellent modern European cooking with the most generous of hearts. Lucky, lucky Hove.
About £30 per head