the UK Restaurant and Hotel Zine
the UK Restaurant and Hotel Zine
Eastbourne may conjure up images of elderlies in bath chairs to you, but not to me. I spent my teenage years there, and in summer the beaches were thick with beautiful foreign girls practising their English with us natives. The local talent wasn't bad either, and I have many happy memories of "The Cattle Market" alias the Grand Hotel Ballroom, where many a tryst was made to be consummated later on in a convenient beach hut. Dream on dear thing!
Now the hotel is a popular confenence venue, which seems to be the fate of most English hotels, especially those in seaside resorts. Perhaps there will be a resurgence in English summer holidays, if only the weather would improve. On a lovely summer day, I'd happily settle for Eastbourne, particularly if the day were to end with dinner in The Mirabelle Restaurant. The main restaurant in the Grand Hotel makes the restaurant in the Ritz look like a tea room (albeit a very beautiful one!). The Mirabelle is the hotel's fine dining room, which has its own entrance from Jevington Gardens (we lived at number three) as well another via several long corridors leading away from the reception area.
It's a pretty room with a fresh daytime atmosphere even at night, and there are drapes hanging from the windows just like the ones onto which they used to project the words "This is to Certify" at the Cinema. I felt the same thrill of expectancy as I used to at the Tivoli when the drapes slowly lifted and the titles began to roll.
The chef is Simon Hulstone, another of these precocious 23 year olds who has already cooked in half a dozen other places including Ston Easton Park, Hanbury Manor and most recently The Essence in Auckland, New Zealand. These prodigies must start, like Mozart, at the age of six! According to a CV I sneaked a look at, he's also won over 20 top awards, including a gold medal in South Africa and three at the Salon Culinaire International de Londres Hotelympia. My thrill of expectancy began to know no bounds!
There were four of us, which included my son and his girl friend, so I rather meanly insisted that we choose from the "Seasonal" fixed price menu as we were only days away from Christmas. In fact there was only one nod in the direction of Christmas - the Mirabelle is clearly no place for the gastronomically challenged! A very pretty amuse came up first, a confit of chicken with onion relish on a miniature slice of toasted brioche, very deft, very elegant.
We tried all three starters: a foie gras and chicken liver parfait was ultra smooth with a good ration of foie gras to chicken liver and the sauterne jelly was excellent. All the breads were top class, so don't eat too much of them and you won't manage the puddings! Then there was a very small piece of red mullet which sat on a neat julienne with rather a nice tangy sauce that tasted of plums. I had the duck consommé with ginger and lemon grass. It tasted like liquid duck from a good Thai restaurant (this is meant to be a compliment). If I had been a vegetarian I would have gone for the Girolle and spring onion tart with rocket pesto and sundried tomato tapenade from the carte. Our starters were washed down with a bottle of a nice Sauvignon Blanc whose name I forgot to note - I expect it came from the Pays d'Oc, but it cost £14.50 which wasn't at all bad.
Between courses we were offered a simply delightful lime sorbet ice cream. It was sharp and clean and very refreshing.
The nod in the direction of Christmas was a Roast Turkey medallion topped with a chestmut and cranberry mousse served on a parsnip rösti. I don't think I've ever seen such a refined attempt at presenting turkey in the modern style. The decorations and trimmings overtook the turkey with great ease; the bird itself remained stubbornly true to type and refused to come to the party. Much better was the fillet of beef under a powerful Roquefort and chervil glaze. We asked for one steak medium and the other rare, and that is precisely how they came out of the kitchen. How nice it is when one's instructions are carried out with such precision. As the mullet was eensty-weentsy so the baked salmon was absolutely vast, enough for a great white shark! It was very juicy and full of flavour, and we liked the Japanese style noodles and the piquant tomato concasse.
Since we were in Sussex, the heartland of the English Vineyard revival, I ordered a red English wine Epoch I from Chapel Down. It was fantastic! Yes fantastic! Caramel and game! Silky and seductive! No really, I mean it, this is a really well crafted wine that's very satisfying and we can be proud of it!
There was one dessert on the prix fixe menu: a hot cinnamon pudding with "Christmas Ice Cream" and apples in a Calvados sabayon. We managed to persuade the very obliging maitre d' to bring us a selection of Mirabelle desserts so that we could all have a spoonful each to try. At this point I should say that the service was very good indeed - better than many similar places in London where the waiters seem to be getting ruder by the week.
The dessert platter was terrific, we particularly liked the lemongrass brulée. An otherwise perfectly plain brulée of classic texture was given the subtlest of lifts with the spice. The lemon tarte was like the middle of a very nice lemon meringue pie (I'm so greedy, couldn't I have the meringue as well?!!).
There was a moment when I was idly looking at the a la carte menu and wondering whether to splash out on venison loin with a pheasant and pistaccio sausage, or braised Maroc lamb shanks with a red onion cous cous, or local sea bass with a mussel and clam chowder, but for £32.00 a head including the coffee and very nice chocolate petits fours (which they gift wrap in a box if can't manage them at the table), I think we did very well indeed.
Clifford Mould January 1999 PS Chefs don't stay anywhere for long do they? Since July 1999, Marc Wilkinson became the head chef, and he's continuing the award winning tradition for which this kitchen is noted. See report below
The Mirabelle Restaurant at The Grand Hotel Eastbourne
Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, East Sussex
Tel: 01323 412345
Room rates at the AA 5 Star Grand Hotel start at £155 for an inland
superior room inclusive of full English breakfast, service and tax.
You can get Epoch I from the English Wine Centre
The Grand is owned by Elite Hotels, which also owns Ashdown Park, at nearby Wych Cross, Forest Row, East Sussex, and Tylney Hall at Rotherwick, near Hook, in Hampshire.
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