FOURTH AND CHURCH — Restaurant in England

My daughter and I had a wonderful experience at Fourth and Church. She's a dedicated foodie living in London; cooking is her primary hobby. I live in Calgary, Canada, and count on her to research and select restaurants for us to try when I'm in London. We always spend a couple of nights at the seaside, and Brighton and Hove was the perfect getaway.

We chose the seasonal set menu and were not disappointed. All the dishes were delicious and beautifully presented. The staff were attentive and professional. We chose the smoked cod's roe pani puri to start and then had the porcini and madeira parfait and pickled mushrooms on toasted focaccia. Both were outstanding.

The slow cooked pork with mussel escabeche, black garlic aioli and smoked almonds almost did us in. What incredible flavours. My daughter suspected the pork was cooked sous vide, and she was right. It was so soft and decadent you could bring your grandma and she wouldn't even need her dentures. Our only complaint was the amount – two pieces of pork was too much! It was so amazing we couldn't leave any behind and had to take the cheese course back to our B&B to leave room for dessert. The gubbeen was a real treat the next day. I was worried we'd be charged for a fridge clean because this is one stinky cheese. Seriously good. The dessert was divine and very pretty. Mont Blanc of chestnut, agen prune and pedro ximinez. Yummy!

The cocktails and wine were also excellent. Very...

SUPERB IN EVERY WAY! We had the room downstairs as there were eight of us, and from the informative menu chats/emails from Anna prior to the night, to the very knowledgeable and helpful info on the night from the wine guy/sommelier/front of house Jonathan, through to our incredible personal waitress Zoe, the service was second to none. We chose the pre ordered sharing menu so no decisions had to be made on the night and the food was outstanding. We were a mixed fussy, critical group of well travelled cooks and wine drinkers who have been around the block a few times and we were all, to a man, blown away by the seamless way the kitchen and Zoe produced the food and informed us about each dish, and although they were small sharing plates, there was a LOT of food to get through, and even though there was one member of the party who said there was nothing he would have chosen for himself, he cleaned his plate every time! The wine list is fabulous and we had great fun moving through it from the delicious light hearted English pink sparkling to start, right through to a sublime bottle of Australian Malbec at the end. We were made to feel so special and when we came to leave we couldn't believe how busy it was upstairs, can't imagine what it's like in the kitchen, very impressive,...

Outstanding food, controlling management. We visited with 2 other couples on a Saturday evening, the style is sharing plates, so a relaxed eating style we thought. Whilst perusing the menu and trying to juggle ordering 2 or 3 dishes each and not ending up with 6 of one dish, we asked for a platter of meats and some bread, we were advised/told we should really order all our dishes at once since we needed to vacate our table in 2hrs, ok, I'm used to this, but not really wanting to be hurried along having just sat down. We followed direction and ordered quickly. The food arrived one delicious plate after another, I can not fault the food, an explosion of flavour in each mouth full. However, as we were finishing up our last few dishes, the waitress came over and asked if we could keep the noise down. We were 6 people chatting and laughing, enjoying the relaxed sharing style dining, none of us were using bad language or arguing, so we were a little taken aback to be essentially told off. We left feeling like scolded children with a lingering bitter taste. 5 star food ruined by...