Friday treat

This lunchtime a couple of us were invited to a new restaurant in Brighton called The Coal Shed. The name comes from the fact that the food is all cooked in a special coal-fired oven which can reach incredible temperatures. The oven is very special and only a few restaurants in the UK use it including Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsey, this is the only restaurant in Sussex to have one.

To be honest I'm probably underselling the oven as cooking is not my forte but it did look impressive. So on to the food... while many people assume that everyone in Brighton must be a vegetarian, I am definitely not and do enjoy a piece of steak as a treat. Although I can honestly say that today's steak was in a league of it's own, very tender and packed full of flavour. While I would have happily eaten the meat just as it was but the Chimichurri sauce was recommended to us so we had to give it a try. The sauce was a mixture of herbs, garlic and chilli and was a perfect companion to the meat as it didn't overpower the flavours but simply enhanced them.

I'm started to worry that you will think all this sounds good to be true but I guess the only answer is for you to go and try it for yourselves! Oh but before I let you go and do that I should point out that the reason for the meat being so super scrummy is not just because of the style of cooking. Raz the owner painstakingly researched suppliers and only when he spoke to Garlic Wood Farm was he satisfied. Not only are they a local Sussex farm but they also breed Longhorn beef cows which the industry regard as the best.

Considering the restaurant only opened a couple of weeks ago it was great to see that it was almost full this lunchtime with lots of bookings for the rest of the weekend. I'm sure as the word spreads they will just get busier & busier.

Charlotte