Brighton and Hove Food and Drink Awards 2018

Festival director Nick Mosley gives us the lowdown.

The hospitality offering of Brighton and Hove is astounding.

For a city of less than 300,000 people we punch well above our weight with amazingly creative chefs, international flavours, a wide range of pricing points and a cocktail scene that genuinely competes with the best in the world.

And that’s what we celebrate each year with the Brighton and Hove Food and Drink Awards: the best of the best.

Public nominations open in April across 19 categories, then the top three in each category go to our panel of judges at the end of September to verify the public voting.

The process of verification and judging is meticulous with a combination of sponsors and the festival team reviewing, secret shopping and interviewing to find our champions.

The judging criteria is pre-defined and incredibly strict, for example we only allow businesses with a food hygiene rating of four or five to be a finalist.

This year, I’m pleased to see so many of the great businesses we work with across the year in the finals, but also lots of new entrepreneurs such as the gem that is Irma’s Kitchen in St James’s Street, the brilliant Starfish & Coffee on Egremont Place and the amazing team behind The Real Junk Food Project.

That the public’s nominations generate new names and businesses really makes our awards unique.

It would be so easy for my colleagues and I to choose our personal favourites, or be bias to those we work with, but that wouldn’t be a genuine reflection of the diversity of our city’s food and drink scene.

That said, after 15 years nurturing and promoting the hospitality industries of the city and food and drink producers of surrounding Sussex, this is the last year of the Brighton & Hove Food and Drink Festival.

It’s been a tough and heart-wrenching few months for myself and my fellow directors coming to that decision but we feel that we have achieved all we can.

Whilst we have always been a not-for-profit community interest company, there are now other commercial organisations providing food and drink marketing and events, and as a result of that our sponsorship and patronage has declined – and unfortunately undermined – in the past couple of years which has had the knock-on effect of making events such as our twice yearly free entry Sussex & The World Weekends on Hove Lawns economically unviable.

On a positive note, it demonstrates to us that the free work that the festival team has put in over the years has created an ecosystem that is now commercially viable.

Whether that is wonderful weekly farmers markets, touring food festival events or marketeers such as Visit Brighton, Restaurants Brighton or the Brighton Top 20. We are confident that these organisations are well-positioned to take the solid bedrock of our work forwards.

I know I speak for the festival chairman and founder, Roger Marlowe, and my colleagues Adam Style, Andrew Kay and Nathalie Gomez de Vera when I say we’ve had an absolute ball running the food and drink festival.

We’ve had a few tears but fortunately many, many more laughs.

We’ve made some amazing friends and had some truly delicious food and drink experiences both here in the city, and also internationally with our festival partnerships in Sicily, Gothenburg and Vancouver, and our chef exchange programme that has seen us champion Brighton and Sussex across Europe and as far afield as the Caribbean.

We sign off with a lot of pride in what we have achieved as an organisation, and also what the restaurants and farmers, the cafés and vineyards, and the fishermen and mixologists have created in making Brighton & Hove a true food and drink destination.

Here are the winners of tonight's Brighton and Hove Food and Drink awards:

Best Cocktail Bar sponsored by Fentimans

Gold: The Plotting Parlour

Silver: Gung Ho!

Bronze: Twisted Lemon

Best Café sponsored by Dental Health Spa

Gold: Starfish & Coffee

Joint Silver: Egg & Spoon

Joint Silver: Irma’s Kitchen

Best Sunday Roast sponsored by Joogleberry

Gold: The Geese

Silver (Highly Commended): Busby & Wilds

Bronze: The Caxton Arms

Best Brighton Burger sponsored by 204060 Radio Cabs

Joint Gold: Burger Brothers

Joint Gold: 7 Bone Burger Co.

Silver: Brighton Burger

Best Social Eating Experience sponsored by WeFiFo

Gold: The Real Junk Food Project

Silver: 64 Degrees

Bronze: Market Restaurant & Bar

Best Takeaway sponsored by Brighton & Hove Tourism Alliance

Gold: The Chilli Pickle

Silver: Pizzaface

Bronze: BeFries

Best Pub

Gold: The Hand in Hand

Silver: Brighton Bierhaus

Bronze: The Pond

Newcomer

(a hospitality business operating in the city for 18 months or less)

Gold: Murmur

Silver: Irma’s Kitchen

Bronze: Etch by Steven Edwards

Best Cheap Eats

(a meal for under £15)

Gold: The Real Junk Food Project

Silver: Pompoko

Bronze: BeFries

Best Place to Sleep sponsored by Hensby Law

Gold: Drakes of Brighton

Silver: Artist Residence

Bronze: My Brighton

Best Afternoon Tea sponsored by Style Accountants

Gold: The Grand

Silver: The Salt Room

Bronze: Metrodeco

Best Food/Drink Retailer sponsored by Poised to Move

Gold: Fourth & Church

Silver: Butler’s Wine Cellar

Bronze: Infinity Foods

Best International Dining sponsored by Cardens

Gold: Curry Leaf Café

Silver: Tropical Sushi

Bronze: The Chilli Pickle

Best Family Dining sponsored by Wobblegate Juices

Gold: Murmur

Silver: BeFries

Bronze: Fatto a Mano

Best Place to do Business sponsored by Cobb Digital

Gold: The Salt Room

Silver: Harbour Hotel

Bronze: Hixon Green

Best Restaurant sponsored by Claire Walsh

Gold: Etch by Steven Edwards

Silver: Terre à Terre

Bronze: 64 Degrees

Food Hero

(a person or organisation that has gone the extra mile for the city)

Gold: Shelley Eldrdery, St Anne’s

Silver: The Real Junk Food Project

Bronze: Michael Bremner, 64 Degrees/Murmur

Young Chef of the Year sponsored by Ridgeview Wine Estate

Winner: Ben Lippett, 64 Degrees

Runner-up: Marcus Ingam, The Salt Room

Runner-up: George Thomas, Isaac At

Chef of the Year sponsored by NFU Mutual Pulborough

Winner: Duncan Ray, The Little Fish Market

Runner-up: Michael Bremner, 64 Degrees/Murmur

Runner-up: Steven Edwards, Etch by Steven Edwards