64 DEGREES, BRIGHTON

A couple of weekends ago we jumped in the van and headed to Brighton for 24 hours. I really love Brighton, but most of my visits have been at night to see friends who are DJs or musicians perform there, so I've never really got a true feel for the town. So we booked a flat via AirBnb and went to make the most of the lovely weekend. This also meant we had the opportunity to book a couple of places for food that I'd heard about and really wanted to try out, as again, we're normally there late at night, or staying with friends so going with them to eat. One of the places I'd heard about was a new, tapas-style restaurant in The Laines called 64 Degrees. It only opened this year but has had rave reviews already so I was thrilled that they'd managed to book a table for us on Saturday afternoon. That was until we got on to the M25, and didn't move for about half an hour. A small panic rose inside me as I calculated miles left til Brighton, amount of time we were stuck and potentially missing 64 Degrees' opening hours. We were booked for 2.30 - they stop serving food at 3. We got to Brighton at 2.45, found a parking space and ran through the throng of tourists to get to the restaurant in time. We got there with seconds to spare... Luckily! In fact by this time we'd agreed to meet with our friend and her son, and try and squeeze them onto our table as well, which we did.

64 Degrees is tiny. It probably seats a maximum of 24 people at any one time - one table of 4, one table of 6, two of 2 and 6-8 seats at the bar in front of the open kitchen. After a bit of re-jigging we were put on the largest table, as people were leaving and the kitchen closed.

The idea of 64 Degrees is that you order 3-4 dishes per person, and share them... if you want! The menu is split into meat, fish and veggie and there are 4 or 5 dishes per category. The waitresses were very thorough in talking us through the menu, and also checking if we had any allergies so they could advise us what to avoid, which was really helpful, as menus don't necessarily list every single ingredient in a dish. We ordered plentifully and dishes arrived one after another, until we were so full the only thing we could do was polish off an espresso martini and head to the flat for a little rest!

This is what we ate:

Lamb, asparagus, fregola, anchovy. This was one of my favourite dishes - the lamb was cooked to perfection and the flavours of the dish so harmonious. It was Spring on a plate and just so good. The anchovies added the perfect amount of saltiness against the slightly creamy fregola.

Scallops, miso, lemongrass and sea kale. Another winner for me - juicy, plump, caramelised scallops on the outside, but moist and perfectly cooked inside. Eating scallops by the sea is heaven.

Then it was asparagus, hollandaise and hazelnuts. Again, delicious and seasonal, and so well cooked (there's a theme here - the cooking of all the ingredients was incredible!) The crunch of the hazelnuts was a wonderful contrast in texture to the soft asparagus and the foamy, lemon hollandaise.

Next up, tomato, iceberg, avocado and land cress. This was freshness on a plate, and the tomatoes tasted of sunshine, each slightly different than the other. I love charred lettuce as well.

Our friends we were dining with ordered the bream, oyster, ratte and chard. This was excellent as well, but our friend's 9 year old son was a little disappointed that the oyster had been made into a sauce rather than served whole on his plate - he's got a pretty sophisticated palette already!

I ordered the next dish for me, as the boy can't eat chilli, but actually found it to be lacking in heat. It was billed as chicken wings, kimchi and blue cheese but there wasn't enough kick for me, nor was the blue cheese sauce punchy enough with blue cheese. But the chicken wings were juicy and tender, and I still ate all of them!

In place of chicken wings, the boy had the short rib, seaweed, tomato and carrot, which went down a treat. The meat fell off the bone and the dish had lovely textures to it, with a crunch of seaweed and the soft meat.

Finally, we shared potato knodel, cabbage and smoked butter which was amazing (although would've been better half way through the meal rather than at the end). The potato knodel were smooth and creamy on the inside yet with a crispy outside and the smoked butter had a really deep flavour. The charred cabbage stopped this dish from being too heavy.

With all adults too full for pudding, we moved onto perfect espresso martinis while Kai had a sticky toffee pudding. We might've had a mouthful of pudding to check it was ok.... it was better than ok!

 

The bill at 64 Degrees came to about £35 a head, which for the amount of food we ate, and the quality of the dishes was great value. We didn't hold back on drinks either!

I think that 64 Degrees get booked up quite far in advance so if you want to go, make sure you reserve before you go. We managed to get a late lunchtime table booking a few days before we went, and you can book via their website here.