The Restaurant Guide for Wine Lovers
The Coal Shed
The Coal Shed is a central-Brighton steak-and-seafood restaurant that cooks over coal and fire, from a raw bar to a salt-aged charcoal grill. The wine programme is built to that cooking — a fire-friendly red section, a high-acid white spine and a dry Sherry for the hardest plates, offered with real flexibility by the glass, the carafe and the Coravin — and it answers the menu's saltiest and sharpest dishes fluently. It will most reward the diner who wants to drink a serious glass with each course, not only a serious bottle, alongside food cooked over flame.
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etch. by Steven Edwards
Hove, Brighton and Hove
Modern British tasting menu
etch. is a tasting-menu restaurant where the wine flight is matched course by course, so the food-and-wine integration this guide prizes is built into the format rather than left to the diner. Its list is terroir-minded and weighted to small growers, with a genuinely deep English-sparkling section that doubles as the right answer to the menu's hardest plate — though the complete absence of Champagne is a real gap in breadth. It will most reward a curious wine lover who takes the flight, or who treats the English-sparkling list as the serious, locally rooted programme it is.
Read the assessmentEnglish's of Brighton
Brighton, Brighton and Hove
Seafood and oyster bar
English's of Brighton is a historic Lanes seafood restaurant and oyster bar whose wine list takes the seafood as seriously as the kitchen, with a standout Champagne and English-sparkling programme and a deep run of the saline whites shellfish wants, much of it offered by the glass or carafe. The wine programme achieves real mutual elevation — the raw bar and the hardest plates are precisely what the list answers most fluently — let down only by the absence of dry Sherry, the one thing the cured-fish plate truly calls for. It will most reward the wine lover who comes for oysters and lets the by-the-glass and carafe list carry them course by course, or who treats the English-sparkling section as the serious, locally rooted programme it is.
Read the assessmentThe Salt Room
Brighton, Brighton and Hove
Seafood and grill
The Salt Room is Brighton's seafront seafood restaurant, cooking fish, shellfish and prime meats over fire on the parrilla grill. The wine programme matches it with character — a coastal-Mediterranean list led by Spain, a saline high-acid white spine and a dry Sherry for the hardest cured-fish plates, a Sussex English-sparkling flagship and a generous by-the-glass and Coravin offer — and it answers the menu's saltiest and sharpest dishes with real fluency. It will most reward the curious drinker who wants to explore beyond the familiar by the glass while eating seafood straight off the coast.
Read the assessmentFurna
Brighton, Brighton and Hove
Modern British and European
Furna is an ambitious, Michelin-noticed Brighton kitchen of whole-animal cookery and daily-changing seasonal plates, with three ways in from an accessible set lunch to an evening tasting menu. The wine programme matches that ambition — a serious, English-led list of real breadth that answers the menu's hardest plates by the glass and carries its own designed flight for the tasting — and prices it with restraint through a generous glass-and-carafe offer. It will most reward the curious diner who wants to drink local sparkling and grower wines at a high level without the bill of a fine-dining cellar, and who is happy to let a thoughtful floor team steer the trickier plates.
Read the assessmentWild Flor
Hove, Brighton and Hove
Classic seasonal British and European
Wild Flor is a small, wine-led Hove restaurant cooking precise, seasonal British and European food. Its short, biodynamic-leaning list achieves genuine mutual elevation: it serves authentically difficult dishes and holds the high-acid, savoury and by-the-glass answers to meet them, mature Burgundy and all. Anyone who cares as much about the glass as the plate will be happy here, and a single diner can drink unusually well without committing to a bottle.
Read the assessmentPlateau
Brighton, Brighton and Hove
Natural wine bar and small plates
Plateau is one of the country's original natural-wine bars, and its all-natural, Jura-deep list of independent European growers is a characterful, single-minded thing best drunk by the glass across the small-plates menu. Its score reflects breadth rather than quality: the cooking and the natural list pair fluently and answer the menu's hardest plates well, but the deliberately narrow remit means no Champagne, little maturity, a thin fortified corner and almost no New World, all of which this guide's framework counts. It will most reward a curious drinker who comes to explore natural wine by the glass and lets the floor team lead, rather than one looking for the breadth of a classical cellar.
Read the assessmentTutto
Brighton, Brighton and Hove
Italian
Tutto is the Black Rock group's all-Italian restaurant, set in a former banking hall in central Brighton and cooking antipasti, pasta and grilled meats and fish to share. Its wine programme matches the kitchen with a deep, well-organised all-Italian list — a high-acid white spine and a dry Sherry for the cured and raw fish, serious Piedmont and Tuscan reds by the glass through a Coravin, and Italian sparkling and stickies — and it answers the menu's saltiest and sharpest plates fluently. It will most reward the diner who wants to drink the length of Italy by the glass alongside a proper Italian feast.
Read the assessmentStem
Hove, Brighton and Hove
Modern British bistro and natural wine bar
Stem is a chef-led modern British bistro and natural wine bar in Hove, where seasonal local cooking meets an all-organic, low-intervention list offered in full by the glass. The wine programme achieves genuine mutual elevation through the range to answer the menu's hardest plates, the cured and oily fish, and a real local thread of Sussex wine, let down only by the absence of any dessert or fortified wine to finish on. It will most reward the curious drinker who enjoys natural wine, or wants to, and likes to taste widely by the glass across a meal.
Read the assessment