The Coach House - country house flair & pub food

Dear Chef of The Coach House,

Thank you so much for cooking for me and my friend.

We passed by the Coach House on a Friday in the evening sun and were directly drawn in by the rustic homely atmosphere of this beautiful decorated and ivy overgrown Country House in the middle of Brighton. Having a look on the menu we were especially impressed by the sound of the starters, such wonderful ingredients combined

with challenging flavours. "Why are we not ordering all of the starters and a nice bottle of wine?", we thought to ourselves.

We waited a short amount of time as the seven plates filled our table. The first bite was the pleasure of a perfectly pan fried scallop... soft, tender and juicy, seared with roasted aromas were caressing my palate. Unfortunately this was the climax from our starters adventure. The combination with a rustic pasty tomato reduction to the scallops were fighting with its natural given elegance. Unfortunately were the other six starters build on the same concept: fine classic ingredients unfortunately combined with pub food, presented with pretentious names and menu descriptions, commonly sprinkled with red watercress or pink peppercorns. The combination of the finest dry cured, aged lean "Bresaola", with a standard coleslaw salad on top says everything. Who ever experienced freshly cut Bresaola just with a bit of lemon juice and olive oil would probably agree. The same happened with the confit duck made into a dry patè ...

Dear chef, it seemed to me you had the idea to combine pub food with fine cuisine instead you took fine ingredients and made healthy pub food out of them. I don`t know if this is what you wanted to do, because I enjoyed the pub food and all in all I had a healthy nice meal, but it could had been a fantastic meal and it hurt the feelings of the duck, the Bresaola, the scallops and the salmon. As well I did not gave one main course a chance and I will consider to give it a try for a late lunch, when I am soon again in this area. Sincerely Carla Paul