Restaurants: Plateau, Brighton
Website: https://www.plateaubrighton.co.uk/
Plateau is one of those restaurants that I love to eat at. A lunch today, on a bright but chilly winter’s day, was just about perfect.
This isn’t a new concept. Shared plates of authentic, flavourful food, paired with a compact but diverse selection of natural wines, in an informal but stylish setting. But done well, this is a great experience.
The challenge with a wine list like this, which has lots of unfamiliar names as well as a few well-known ones, is what to choose. Especially at lunch when you can often only manage a single bottle between two. I chose the Foulards Rouge Octobre 2022, a Vin de France red. Light in colour, natural, digestible, drinkable and delicious. We discussed how this must be what wine was like 2000 years ago: foot-trodden grapes, macerated a short while in a stone trough, then pressed and fermented off the skins. Pale, fragrant, a bit delicate, and not totally clear.
We later added a glass each of the excellent Ferme L’Apogée 12 Mois Plus Tard 2021 Vin de France, which is a Sauvignon Gris fermented on skins from Bergerac.
But let’s not neglect the food. Plateau’s menu is really good. We ate very well, opting for the vegaetarian-friendly dishes. Everything was spot on.
We’ll be back: it’s worth the hour-long train ride from London to eat here and hang out in Brighton. Value for money, service, wine list, food – all excellent.
