The Gingerman at Drakes

[Andy Lynes]

Draft menu for The Gingerman at Drakes which opens on 20 September:

Colchester Oysters on the Half Shell, Condiments £6.95

___________________

Wild Mushroom Ravioli with Mushroom Cream and Chervil

White Onion Soup with Smoked Bacon Dumplings

Marinated Organic Salmon with Potato Blinis and Herb Cream

Foie Gras Poached in Sauternes with Beetroot and Apple Chutney

Cornish Crab Salad with Avacado and Sauce Maltaise

Asparagus Feuillete with Warm Poached egg and Chive Butter

_____________________

Buchan Beef Fillet with Gratin Potatoes, Onion Rings and Red Wine

Rack of Downs Lamb with Garlic Puree and Pistou

Slow Roasted Pork Belly with Fondant Potatoes and Creamed Leeks

Fresh Fish From Local Boats

Monkfish and Sweet Potato Red Curry with Jasmine Rice

Veggie (to be confirmed)

________________________

Hot Chocolate Fondant with Vanilla and Mascarpone Ice Cream

Hot Raspberry Souffle with Raspberry Sauce

White Chocolate and Strawberry Trifle

Iced Cream Sundae

Port and Stilton Toast with Walnut Oil

Selection of English Or Irish Cheeses

(1 more dessert to be decided)

2 Courses £25 3 Courses £30

I'll report on the restaurant and hotel in late September, early October.

Hotel website.

[Matthew Grant]

Quite clearly destined to fail - they haven't served the fondant potato with the rack of lamb!

[Andy Lynes]

Asparagus - in September? Otherwise, quite a nice sounding menu, if a little on the safe side. If you lived in Brighton, you'd understand why I am rooting for this place to be good.

[Andy Lynes]

I attended the launch party of Drakes hotel in Brighton last night. The town's celebrities were out in force: Kevin Rowland, David Van Day (teeny tiny David Van Day) and the bloke off Corry that used to be a teacher in Grange Hill - yes, they were all there.

The hotel will no doubt be terrific when its finished. Apparently it was a bit of rush even to get it to the 80% completed state that we saw it in last night.

The dining room is a low ceiling basement and a rather claustrophobic space, although it was packed with champage swilling freeloaders (that'll be me then) so I'm reserving judgement until I see it properly set up for service with people sitting at the tables instead of leaning against them.

Restaurant report will be forthcoming as soon as the Labour party leaves town and we can get a table.

[Andy Lynes]

There is an interview with Gingerman chef Ben McKellar by Joe Warwick in the current issue of Restaurant Magazine. I am dining in the restaurant tonight and will report back tomorrow.

[Andy Lynes]

A little delayed, but better late than never:

Since opening in April 1998, chef Ben McKellar’s The Gingerman restaurant has become something of a Hove institution. The small 32 cover dining room has been sold out since it opened, with waiting lists for Friday and Saturday night being the normal state of affairs. However, two visits (once for dinner and once for lunch) left me nonplussed; the restaurant looked like a cheaply done shop conversion and felt cramped during a slowly served meal.

McKellar certainly has the cooking chops, having trained with John Burton Race and the infamous Nigel Marriage at L’Ortolan and spent some time as Mark Emerson’s number two at Langan’s Bistro in Brighton. But the food I had was indifferent and I left on both occasions feeling a little short changed. Yet friends and colleagues continued to rave, and to this day I have never heard a bad word breathed about it.

So it was with mixed feeling that I heard about the opening of a second Gingerman at the latest and most high profile boutique hotel in town, Drakes. I had an opportunity to give the place the once over during the launch party, but the refurbishment of the building was only 80% complete and the hotel was rammed to the rafters with freeloaders making it difficult to get a real sense of the place.

I returned last week to find out, with the hotel and restaurant now complete and the kitchen having had a month or so to settle in. Drakes is housed in two converted Georgian townhouses in Marina Drive overlooking the seafront. It’s certainly elegant enough, but the small entrance hall with its two staircases leaves little room for a reception, which is instead housed in the bar area. When I arrived a little after 8.00pm on a Thursday evening, there were no staff members around to greet me, take my coat or direct me to the basement restaurant. Unsure of what to do, I wandered in and out of the bar feeling like a spare part (and no doubt looking like I was casing the joint) until a barman arrived a few moments later.

I told him that I had a reservation for 8.00pm but had arranged to meet my female dining companion in the bar. He offered me a seat while he served another party and I waited for her to arrive. Ten minutes later, and still without a drink, I was told by another member of staff that my companion was in fact waiting for me in the restaurant. The lack of reception staff and the obvious disconnect between the ground floor bar and basement restaurant meant that the evening did not get off to a great start and only got worse as I was unable to convince my wife (for it was she) that I hadn’t been off boozing somewhere while she had been sat like a lemon all by herself in the dining room.

A frosty atmosphere persisted so I sought solace in a glass of the house Michel Baujean brut Champage (7.00) and hid behind the short menu priced at 25.00 for two courses and 30 for three. From the six choices available at each stage, the gorgeous but fuming spouse ordered seared scallop with crispy pork belly and cabernet sauvignon vinegar and a main of 28 day speyside ribeye with potato rosti and shallot cream, while I went for salad of braised ox tongue with sweet potato chips and a roast partridge with savoy cabbage, fondant potato and Madeira to follow. From the 49 bin, reasonably priced wine list we drank a very agreeable Palliser Estate Riesling 2002 from New Zealand (22.00).

The cream and beige room has a very feminine feel to it and is smart and substantial in a way that so many Brighton restaurants aren’t. It’s not cutting edge design, but it’s still ahead of most of the local field. The low ceiling does it no favours at all however and the 40 covers are somewhat squeezed in. When the room is full, as it was that night, the temperature can rise above comfortable.

An amuse of beignet of salt cod with a tomato based sauce was a great idea, but undercooked, leaving the interior mouth-coatingly claggy. The scallops were judged by the Missus to be a little on the bland side. My ox tongue was very good, although I found a garnish of broad bean and tomatoes perplexingly unseasonal. Main courses were mostly successful with only a slightly greasy rosti and a partridge the wrong side of dry to find fault with.

Portions are big at The Gingerman and I was in need of something light to finish with. A bramley apple and blackberry soufflé with calvados ice cream sounded delightfully wintery but in the end plumped for an Ice Cream sundae, while the wife had cheese. Both hit the spot, with a light and crisp shortbread biscuit and rich chocolate sauce served with the sundae impressing the most.

Once in the restaurant, service was efficient and unobtrusive whilst it squeezed itself between chair backs. My wife’s query about what cheeses she had been served could not be conclusively answered, although not for the want of trying. The experience was certainly a big step up from previous meals in the original Hove restaurant, with Drakes offering a more polished overall product and more refined food on the plate.

Popping back at lunchtime a few days ago in order to pick up copies of the menus and wine list, I was pleased to be greeted unprompted by a member of staff at the door of the bar and to be asked if he could help me, and the restaurant looked more roomy and inviting in daylight than it had at night. A reasonably priced and regularly changing set lunch at 18.00 for 3 courses which currently features potted duck with apple and plum chutney and wing of skate with buttered mash, aubergine confit and basil could well tempt me back, although next time I’ll make sure the wife and I arrive together.

A recent return visit to the original Hove branch for Saturday lunch was also not without it mishaps, and found me back at the Bar at Drakes while the remainder of the group waited for me in a pub in Hove. Yes, I’d got the wrong Gingerman. Once reunited however, our table of six enjoyed a great meal in the sold out restaurant. The set lunch menu at 14.95 for 3 courses started with a punchy cup of celeriac soup with truffle oil and continued with a perfectly cooked confit of duck leg with beetroot.

A freebie middle course of scallop with cauliflower puree was much appreciated by the crowd of chefs (and me), while the main course skate with herb mash was deemed another winner. Prune and Armagnac tart featured thin, crisp pastry, good frangipan and nicely alcoholic fruit. A glass of jelly and cream was deemed an inappropriate way to end the meal by the pastry chef in our midst and was the object of much debate, but nevertheless enjoyed by the person that actually ordered it.

The lack of seasonal garnishes for the main courses again troubled me – broad beans and tomatoes for the skate and a bed of peas for beef in pepper sauce – but is apparently typical of the chef’s style. Service was handled by two waitresses who seemed to be acting out a good cop/bad cop routine; one couldn’t have been more pleasant while the other’s absolute refusal to crack a smile the whole lunchtime became wearing to say the least.

[Suzi Edwards]

I attended the launch party of Drakes hotel in Brighton last night. The town's celebrities were out in force: Kevin Rowland, David Van Day (teeny tiny David Van Day) and the bloke off Corry that used to be a teacher in Grange Hill - yes, they were all there.

←

Don't know how I missed this before. Does David still have a burger van?

[Andy Lynes]

I'm not sure actually, I don't know where his pitch was/is. He's been doing a bit more on the telly and stage recently so maybe he doesn't actually have to work in it anymore. I'll ask him the next time I bump into him.