Review: Wild Flor, Brighton

So. Flor is a thin film of yeast that appears on the surface of wine during winemaking, especially important in the making of sherry. And apparently in Brighton (Hove, actually) it has gone wild and opened a restaurant.

The following morning I left our seafront hotel early (the bloody car park needed feeding money after 8am) and stood gazing out at the wind-swept sea as the winter sun blazed through the haze. Actually I just stood there taking loads of photos in the hope of capturing the beauty in my mobile phone. What the hell is going on with these little parasitic metal and silicon bricks that attach themselves to our bodies and suck our lives out? It’s scary. Got some great pics, though. I also spent a few seconds reflecting on our meal at Wild Flor. It was jolly decent.

Initial bites of salt cod and chorizo croquettes weren’t amazing; the chorizo completely lost amidst the cod n potato, but otherwise perfectly decent balls of crunch. Things get much better when starters arrive. We both go for veal sweetbreads with mushroom puree, chestnuts and a sherry cream sauce. If reading that makes your mouth water, I can report that mine tasted every bit as deluxe and perfect for a winter evening as it sounds. Unluckily, Maureen’s didn’t; it hadn’t been cooked long enough, so the inside was still gelatinous like a big old snot. Full disclosure: if we had mentioned it I’m sure they’d have fixed it, but we didn’t, that’s on us.

My main suited the season even better, if that were possible. A pheasant pithivier, sat on a good parsnip mash and bathed in a wonderful lake of mustard sauce. There was just enough flaky nut-brown pastry to soak up all the sauce, and the pheasant inside was a tasty bird, well moist. Maureen’s main was a wild mushroom risotto with a good grating of fresh truffle on top. It was a dead good specimen of its type.

We shared a pud. Chocolate mont blanc. There should be more chewy chcolate meringue in the world. Candied chestnut puree went very well, as did the tang of passionfruit. This is how a dessert should be, when you’re a bit stuffed and a bit boozed up at the end of a pleasant meal; rich and gooey enough to make an impression on your sleepy palate, but light enough not to induce a post-dinner coma.

I rather like Wild Flor. It’s not doing anything outlandish or astonishing, but what it is going is done with great warmth and competence. You should book a table next time you’re in Hove. We’ll come back.