Cin Cin is a modern Italian neighbourhood restaurant on Western Road in Hove, cooking seasonal small plates and handmade pasta from a menu that changes month to month. The kitchen reads Italy through a Sussex larder (Nutbourne tomatoes, Kentish strawberries, local produce worked in an Italian idiom) across snacks, antipasti, fresh pasta and a short run of mains, such as cured sea trout with crushed peas, pansotti in walnut sauce, clams with samphire and espelette, a slow-cooked Sussex lamb strozzapreti, a pork scaloppine with artichoke. It can be taken à la carte, as a two- or three-course set lunch, as a mid-week dinner with a shared carafe, or as a four-course Chef's Menu with a wine flight alongside. The price point sits in the mid-range (small plates in the low teens, mains in the low to mid-twenties), and the restaurant is listed in the Michelin Guide.
What marks it out for a wine lover is the seriousness of an all-Italian list that travels the country properly (Piedmont, Tuscany, Sicily, Sardinia, Friuli, Veneto, Campania, Alto Adige) and reaches a genuine fine-wine tier most neighbourhood Italians never attempt, such as Barolo and Barbaresco, Amarone, a Campanian Taurasi from Aglianico, a Bolgheri red, a rare Piedmontese Timorasso. The unusual part is the fine-wine-by-the-glass programme, with serious bottles poured in 125ml and 375ml measures, so a table can drink a Barbaresco or a Taurasi by the glass without committing to the bottle. By-the-glass runs across every colour, and the list is tiered plainly from house classics through regional gems to a special-night-out shelf.
Food-wine integration. The all-Italian list is built to the modern-Italian small-plates format and answers it well (high-acid unoaked whites for the cured fish and seafood, Sangiovese for the lamb and tomato, the fine-wine-by-the-glass tier letting a diner trade up plate by plate), and the Chef's Menu prints a matched flight, which shows kitchen and cellar in dialogue.
Buying philosophy. This is curated, not assembled, a coherent all-Italian point of view that runs region by region and is deepened by a seriously chosen fine-wine tier, the work of a buyer who plainly knows the country.
Value. The markup appeared to be medium and was consistent at the time of reviewing; the by-the-glass pricing is honest, and the fine-wine-by-the-glass measures (a Barbaresco or a Taurasi opened for a single fair pour) are where a wine lover's money goes furthest here.
List architecture. Cleanly built and easy to move through (by the glass across every colour, then bottles tiered from classics through regional gems to a special-night-out shelf, with a separate fine-wine and fine-wine-by-the-glass section), so the diner is guided rather than overwhelmed.
Customer communication. Grape, region and vintage are stated throughout, tasting notes sit beside the fine wines and the by-the-glass measures are clearly marked; there is no printed pairing against individual à la carte dishes, so on the harder plates the spoken steer from the floor carries that work.
Regional diversity. All-Italian by design, but it reads Italy in real depth from Piedmont to Campania, which for an Italian kitchen is the right coherent breadth rather than a limitation.
Sparkling and Champagne. The thinnest part of the programme is the sparkling. Prosecco, a semi-sweet Lambrusco and a southern rosato brut cover the slot, but there is no traditional-method depth. A Franciacorta or a grower fizz would earn its place against the fried snacks and the seafood.
Vintage policy. Vintages are stated across the list and the fine-wine tier reaches back to the mid-2010s, so there is real attention to the year and some maturity to be had by the glass.
Sustainability and local. The local story is on the food rather than the wine; an organic Chianti is noted as fact, but the list carries no broad stated organic or low-intervention thread, and an all-Italian programme cannot be a local-sourcing story.
Fortified and dessert. A small but proper corner, with a Tuscan Vin Santo and a sparkling sweet Brachetto d'Acqui, both in 50ml measures, and a deep amaro and grappa shelf to finish.
Accessibility. This is a welcoming place to drink well without knowing wine, with house white and red by the glass and the carafe, a set lunch and a carafe-inclusive mid-week dinner, by-the-glass across the board, and a plainly tiered list that signals where the entry level sits.
The two hardest plates
48-hour cured sea trout, crushed peas with mint and garlic, pickled mushrooms. This is the hardest plate on the menu, and the difficulty is built into it whatever you pour. Sea trout is an oily salmonid, the 48-hour cure concentrates that oil and stacks on salt, and oily cured fish turns sharply metallic against any oak. The reply has to be a bone-dry, high-acid, unoaked white with a saline edge. The acidity cleaves the oily richness and meets the salt of the cure and the pickled mushrooms rather than amplifying it, and no oak goes near the fish. Cin Cin pours several glasses that do exactly this, a Vernaccia di San Gimignano (high-acid, faintly bitter-almond, saline), a Sardinian Vermentino (saline and citrus-driven), or a Gavi from the Cortese grape (mineral and lemon-clean), any of them a precise glass-for-plate match. The oaked Langhe Chardonnay on the by-the-glass list is the one to keep away from this dish.
Pork scaloppine, wild garlic sausage, pickled summer squash, artichoke and pine nuts. Artichoke is the wine-killer of the vegetable world. It carries cynarin, a compound that briefly switches off the palate's sweet receptors so the next sip of wine tastes oddly sweet and metallic. The way through is not to fight it but to ride over it, a dry sparkling, whose acidity and bubble cut clean across the distortion, or a neutral high-acid mineral white with no aromatic frills to be thrown out of shape, which also has the acid for the pickled squash and the presence for the pork. Here the Prosecco by the glass is the simplest answer, with the same Gavi or Vermentino as the still alternative. A tannic red would take the cynarin distortion full in the face, so the artichoke, not the pork, sets the choice.
What to drink
One bottle for the table. A high-acid Italian white carries more of this menu than anything else, whether a Sardinian Vermentino (saline, citrus-driven, low in alcohol) or a Gavi from the Cortese grape (mineral, lemon-clean), either of which handles the snacks, the cured trout (high acid, no oak), the stracciatella and the clams, and rides the artichoke on the pork. Both sit in the accessible middle of the list and are wines an ordinary household can buy and open this week. Neither carries the slow-cooked lamb strozzapreti, which wants a red; for that, add a glass alongside.
If that is not your style. For a red across the lamb and the richer pasta, a Tuscan Sangiovese (a Chianti Classico, or a Rosso di Montalcino as the gentler, earlier-drinking cousin of the Brunello-method wines on the list) brings the savoury cherry and bright acid Italian red sauces are built for, without the heavy tannin that the cured fish and the artichoke would punish.
Across two bottles. Open with the high-acid white through the snacks, the cured trout, the stracciatella and the clams, then move to the Sangiovese for the lamb strozzapreti. Keep a glass of the white, or a glass of the Prosecco, back for anyone at the espelette-spiked clams, where a low-alcohol or sparkling pour lifts the gentle heat cleanly and a high-alcohol red would only stoke it.
At a venue of this standard we would expect the sommelier to be skilled so read this before you arrive and use it to frame the conversation to help them give you the best wine experience. On the cured sea trout or the artichoke pork, ask for a high-acid unoaked glass and keep oak well away.
In summary
Cin Cin is a modern Italian neighbourhood restaurant in Hove, cooking seasonal small plates and handmade pasta from a monthly-changing menu. The wine programme earns its standing on an all-Italian list that reads the country in real depth and reaches a serious fine-wine tier, much of it poured by the glass, let down only by a thin sparkling shelf and a wine list with no local or organic story to match the kitchen's. It will most reward the diner who comes to eat Italian and wants to drink seriously by the glass, trading up plate by plate with the floor to guide them.