etch by Steven Edwards, Hove

Hove is a very acceptable place to spend a day. I was last in the area when visiting the Urchin, a seafood-specialist gastropub and microbrewery (I bet there aren't too many of them around) which made the (pretty easy actually) journey down from Battersea more than worth my while. Since then, I've discovered that we paid way too much for our train tickets (apparently we should have gone Thameslink, not Southern) and also that etch by Steven Edwards has opened, thus giving me another great excuse to travel. This time on a much cheaper train.

The fact that Hove is so well connected to the capital city has a couple of main effects. Firstly, it means etch's catchment area is a few million or so people who can make it there and back for lunch (or dinner I suppose if you don't mind getting back too late) in a very sensible amount of time. And secondly, it means that the astonishing £55 they charge at etch for 7 exquisitely constructed courses (or another £28 for 9) is even more mind-blowing for day-trippers from the big smoke as it is for lucky locals.

We shall start at the beginning. Amuses - in fact extras of any kind - are more than you've any right to expect on a £55 menu but these dainty little things, one a Lord of the Hundreds biscuit topped with cream cheese and chive, the other a mushroom and truffle affair shot through with pickle, were an excellent introduction to the way etch goes about things. Beautiful inside and out, generous of flavour and a delight to eat, from this point we knew we were in safe hands.

Cute little glazed buns formed the bread course alongside seaweed butter. Perhaps the idea was for these to accompany the next couple or so courses, but I'm afraid because they were so addictive they disappeared way before anything else arrived. Still, no regrets.

"Soup of the day" was a bit of a misnomer as this consisted of two courses that arrived as a pair. One a gorgeously rich and fluffy winter vegetable soup - chervil and cauliflower with some irresistible chunks of roasted cauliflower hiding underneath and topped with toasted pine nuts - and a couple of beef tartare tartlets on the side (tartartlets?) to provide a nice companion to the soup. I'm not 100% sure if the tartare was just a blogger's bonus or if they really did come with the soup as standard, but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they do - I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. Oh, and it was all paired with a Retsina, which was a touch of genius.

Halibut could have perhaps been taken off the heat a minute or two earlier but I'm only really saying this out of a dearth of anything else to complain about. It was still clearly a very good fish, with a bright white flesh and nicely bronzed skin, and the parsnip underneath made a remarkably good pairing as well as being nicely seasonal. The crunchy, seaweed-y, noodle-y bits on tops were fun to eat, too.

Of all the dishes, perhaps the crisp hen's egg made the least to write home about. It was perfectly nice, with some good texture provided by croutons and cubes of pickled veg, but the egg itself was...well, an egg yolk in breadcrumbs, decent enough but compared to everything else a bit familiar. Although having said that, I'm very aware I do have slightly more likelihood of getting 'familiar' with tasting menu classics than some people, and there's every chance this could be someone else's favourite course. Such is life's rich tapestry.

Scallop next, a good sweet specimen that had been given a nice firm crust, then sliced and shot through with pumpkin. It's in restaurants like these where you don't have to worry about waiting until the more abundant seasons begin before committing to a meal out - their skill is such that the dishes will be equally exciting and imaginative at every time of the year.

My own personal heaven was embodied in the next course, though, and I'm sorry to be so predictable but there's nothing I can do about that. Beef arrived brilliantly charred from the grill but beautifully tender inside, both as a neat medallion of fillet and - joy of joys - a slice of ox heart with a texture equally dazzling as the fillet but with an extra note of funky offal. Next to it, a little finger of celeriac and a cluster of enoji mushrooms which soaked up a glossy, beefy sauce that made the whole trip worthwhile on its own. I would have paid £55 just for this dish, then gone home happy, it was that good.

More was to come though - firstly a gently flametorched (can you gently flametorch anything? I can't think of any other way of describing it sorry) piece of Tunworth, with a red grape sorbet and bit of pickled endive. After having moaned for years about places trying to gussy-up the traditional cheese course by piling things on top or heating things up (I still have a bit of a problem with baked Camembert) I've realised that with a bit of sensitivity, applying (gentle) heat to a cheese is just a way of presenting its charms in a slightly different way. Think of when a sushi master briefly torches a nigiri before presentation.

And finally dessert, beetroot mousse topped with apple sorbet and with a little red hat of beetroot crisp on top. Colourful and cleverly presented, like a kind of miniature Miro sculpture, it was a lovely coda to the meal, which had ended with the same technical ability and attention to detail as it had begun.

In the interests of impartiality, and given certain recent experiences, I should probably play a little thought experiment and consider if I'd not had the scallop and cheese dishes, would I still have considered £55 to be value. And the honest answer is yes - there's a huge amount of work gone into the food here, with some courses consisting of multiple elements, and the scallop and cheese were just extra expressions of the same kind of theme. There was still more than enough to eat and enjoy without the supplements.

But look, enough hand-wringing. You will know by know if this is the kind of food you like to eat, and whether you think £55 (or more realistically £120-£150 ish if you have matching wine and supplemental courses) is the right amount to pay for it. All I can tell you is that this is the kind of food I like to eat, and Steven Edwards and the team at etch are exactly the people I want to bring it to me. And I would have no hesitation in going back to Hove later in the year, paying in full and seeing what other delights the seasons bring. This is a place worth revisiting.

9/10

I was invited to etch and didn't see a bill. As above, expect to pay between £55-£155 +service depending on what time of day you go, how many courses you choose and what you drink.