18th February 2008
Good but not perfect
We visited La Fourchette on Saturday 16th Feb for a celebratory meal (as part of a trip to Brighton). Service (including on slightly potty, slightly camp French waiter) was excellent and not over the top (no one does service like the French, I believe). The wine list has a wide range of prices with something to suit every pocket (and you can tell where you are on the scale - cheap wine = standard glasses, mid range wine = big glasses and posh wine = decanter).
Bread was expensive at £2 each (which consisted of one cigar roll and one small crusty roll).
The food itself was delicious. Of note was the lamb rump with a confit aubergine and basil beans (scrummy) and the scallop brochette starter with ginger and mango chutney.
We skipped dessert and decided to go for the cheese, as the French are so good at cheese, right? Wrong. The plate of cheese we had was chilled (a cardinal sin in my book) and so very dull, served with half a dozen grapes, two celery "twigs" and crackers. Disappointingly the crackers were just plain cream crackers and water biscuits. Awful. I really wish I had left the cheese out altogether then I would have come away raving about La Fourchette (and the selection of Creme Brulees that I saw served to a adjacent table looked fantastic and were receiving enthusiatic noises).
Mysteriously when it came to settling up the bill it did not add up. Every item we had bought was in round pounds (sensible, really) but the bill total was £xx.75. Very odd. So we took this off when working out the total plus tip.
Finally, the other nail in the 5 star coffin was the temperature in the restaurant. It was arctic. There is small hallway buffer to the outside world but often both doors were oopen at the same time or the door to the chilly hallway was left open. And in February, this close to the coast this is not good.
So, a nice experience but a few jarring elements that made it fall short of 5 stars.
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