Review: Pearly Cow – Brighton
By
4 weeks ago
Fire and ice work in harmony at this seafront restaurant
Steaks, sea views, and a sharing dessert worth fighting over – Pearly Cow brings bold British flavours to Brighton’s smartest hotel, says Tessa Dunthorne.
Review: Pearly Cow, Brighton
Teetering on the edge of Brighton’s shoreline, Pearly Cow is the kind of restaurant that leans into its coastal location without feeling beholden to it. Attached to No124 by GuestHouse – a smart townhouse hotel with a charming blend of warmth and polish – the restaurant sits at a sunken level but still peeks out to the sea with big windows. Its terrace is a new addition as of the summer offering casual fare like sliders and pizza (but all with a grown up twist: the former is wagyu).
The terrace © Lateef Photography
The dining room has a lived-in loveliness to it. Linen-shaded lights give off a soft glow, booths encourage elbow-bumping intimacy, and the kitchen is in full, theatrical view. The water arrives with a little ice dish (and its own teeny little spoon), and the cocktails come in crystalline photogenic forms – clear, flavour-first and unmistakably seasonal. An Aperol here has that holiday oomph; bright, more citrus peel than club holiday.
Yes, you’re by the sea but the menu is not all fresh fish – as lovely as that can be. Instead, the menu is structured around the twin themes of ice and fire. Fire cooking feels very appropriate in this slightly darkened ambient room, and you can spy this in action through the window into the kitchen as great hunks of steak are hoisted over flame. But locale is everything so you can also opt for the day’s market catch – in my case, a pleasingly oily mackerel made sharp with a fermented strawberry salad – or dig your fork into slabs of meat smoked over open flame. The wagyu short rib comes with a great wallop of creamy mash and a shin bone the size of a rolling pin. It’s dream Sunday stuff: you’d be smug to find this kind of supper in a very good country pub, and rarely would.
A lot of the menu is angled around sharing – although you’ll no doubt be fighting over the last red pepper and goat’s cheese taco, which is smothered in the dairy stuff. Or the chips, which are serious business here (they are less french fries than ode to the kind of confit potatoes you’d find in the likes of Quality Chop House). Order the sharing dessert and thank me later: a tarte tatin with calvados crème fraîche ice cream that proves dangerously spoon-battlable.
If you’re planning an overnighter, breakfast is exceptional at Pearly Cow. There’s a full fry if that’s your number, but also elegant menu options like its eggs neptune, which sees an egg topped with a boatload of crab and a rich glossy hollandaise sauce.
There’s something about Pearly Cow that feels effortless – and that’s a trick of course, as effortlessness in hospitality always is. Like its sibling restaurants across the GuestHouse portfolio, there’s a genuine attempt to embed in the local mood, not just the local produce. It doesn’t do coastal clichés or over-explained menus. It just does really good food, in a setting that invites you to stay longer than you meant to (preferably overnight).
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Open daily 12.30-3.15pm, 6-9pm
