Frozen In Aspic Since Fox Talbot

Once a year, Mrs Nigel and I put on our posh frocks and go to Glyndebourne, where we eat a picnic on grass owned by people with better vowels than us and pretend to be members of the Establishment. It is the only reason we ever go to Lewes. Which is probably a good thing because we have had more genuinely dreadful food and service in Lewes than in any other town in Britain, and there are some strong contenders.

Which brings me to the books: Mrs Nigel has become obsessed by “Then and Now” books, which seem to be popping up with great regularity in accommodation across the country. It started in Margate, which apparently wasn’t always quite the gaudy shithole it is now. While I feigned disinterest, it was actually rather fun going into town the next day and charting what had changed, mainly “oh look, a 60s shopping centre where that lovely Victorian building used to be”. Wait until I take her to Milton Keynes, where the book will be entirely filled with black and white photographs of sheep.

The Lewes edition defeats the point of the genre completely. The only difference between the then and the now is that the “then” half is in black and white. The place has been frozen in aspic since Fox Talbot worked out that silver salts were better used producing images than seasoning food. Even the kebab shop looks like it might be listed.

The Restaurant In The Old Syringe Factory

So when Mrs Nigel, the incurable optimist of the pair of us, announced she had booked somewhere new, I had opinions (which I sensibly kept to myself). Last year it was Dill, which I described at the time not so much as a small plates restaurant but as a tiny plates restaurant, with service to match. Actually, we couldn’t go back there if we wanted to, not because of my review (we always book under Mrs N’s maiden name on repeat visits), but it is now “Permanently Closed” according to Google. Weirdly, we had never previously chosen Squisito, as TripAdvisor claimed it had been nestling on a back street since late 2022, but so much of TripAdvisor is now written by machines that it is equally possible it opened three weeks ago and the AI reviewers have been out in force.

It is genuinely tucked away, in the old hypodermic syringe factory, since rebranded as “Needlemakers”, which is at least classier than “Stickers”, which is what I would have gone with. There are shops, a gallery and a “Destination Café”, and by the time I had finished reading that last description on the website I was ready to dislike everything about the evening. We were seated outside, genuinely in a car park. Somewhere in there was a joke about eating something called “exquisite” in the yard of a needle factory, and I fully intended to make it.

The Negroni Test Fails For The First Time

Then came the Negroni test, which regular readers will know as my infallible method of judging a meal before a scrap of it has arrived: order a Negroni, and if they can make one, they can cook. In all the years I have been doing this it has never once been wrong, right up until a warm Friday evening in a car park in Lewes, where it fell over completely.

They offered only a “Squisito Negroni”, a traditional base with crème de cassis stirred through it, which is roughly the same instinct as improving champagne with Vimto. I got them to bring me what I thought would be a classic, at which point they substituted the Campari for one of those poncier Italian bitters that keep turning up in places that should know better. What arrived was less a Negroni than a Negroni’s understudy, brought on at short notice and under-rehearsed, so I sat there sipping at it and mentally drafting the sort of review that writes itself, which is of course precisely the review I am now unable to write.

Mrs Nigel had a “Fresh to Death”, some mezcal-based invention with no heritage whatsoever, which was superb, and which turned out to be a far better forecast of the evening than anything I had ordered. Years of rigorous methodology, undone by a woman who chooses cocktails on the basis of the name.

The Bit Where I Have To Eat My Words

Because the food was, and it pains me to type this, exquisite.

We opened with courgette and burrata. Burrata on a menu usually means a chef has sat there thinking “that will do for the vegetarians, and I don’t even have to cook it”, but this arrived in a sauce so fresh and citrus sharp that we had a brief and undignified dispute over who should finish it. Then the pork ciccioli, a sort of terrine of pulled pork, which I spread on brioche and then thought about, on and off, for the rest of the week. It has gone straight onto my “death row” meal shortlist, which is bad news for several long-standing incumbents.

Secondi, here, incidentally, rather than “large plates”, which earns a gold star and possibly a small commemorative trophy. Main courses have been letting us down for a while, with the small plates usually the better bet, but there were not quite enough of those to build a whole evening from, so we went the traditional route. I had gnocchi with fennel sausage. I insisted on gnocchi for every single meal for about three years as a child, which means I have eaten an enormous quantity of it and most of it was ballast, as pictures of me as a rollable toddler confirm, so I feel reasonably qualified in saying that this was in another league entirely. The sausage was doing something with the fennel that I would like explained to me slowly, preferably in writing, in words with a limited number of syllables.

Mrs Nigel had seabass, also with fennel, but raw. On paper that reads like a kitchen that ran out of time, but it turns out to be the entire point, the cold and the crunch and the aniseed cutting straight through the fish. Same ingredient, two completely opposite treatments, both of them exactly right, and that is not the sort of thing that happens by accident: somebody back there is thinking (possibly the bloke from Dill, with a far larger food budget).

No cheese on the pudding menu, so boo hiss. Although given how thoroughly Italian everything else was, I suspect it would have arrived slathered in honey, and I would have had to dock them a star and leave in a mood.

Wine, Ice And The End Of Civilisation

Wine was sensibly priced, with a bottle of Verdejo at £40 and a good range by carafe and glass. It was warm, so we asked for ice, and for the second meal running the ice was brought for the wine rather than for the bucket. In Glasgow a fortnight ago they at least supplied a brandy glass and a spoon, which gave me something to work with. Here it was just a highball glass presented with the serene confidence of a generation that has never had to wait for anything. When instant gratification reaches viniculture, we are nearer the end of civilisation than I had realised.

Service was friendly, attentive and, in the case of one member of staff, apparently Duracell powered.

The Verdict: Something Finally Happens In Lewes

I still cannot say the name in an Estuary accent without sounding like I am clearing my throat, and it makes me think of popping spots. But Lewes, the town where nothing has happened since photography was invented, has finally had something happen to it. We will be back next year for the annual Establishment cosplay, and I very much hope Squisito is too.

If we keep going there enough, Mrs Nigel can put it in the book.

Conclusion

Overall Rating: 5/5

• Food: 5/5
• Service: 4.5/5
• Ambience: 4/5
• Wine: 4/5
• Negroni: 2/5
• Price: ££
• Would we go back? Next Glyndebourne, and possibly sooner if they shorten the A23

Squisito, The Old Needlemakers, West Street, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 2NZ: squisito.co.uk