The Connaught Pub & Kitchen — Restaurant in Great Britain

My wife and I recently decided to see what all the fuss was about with this place. We booked a table for Sunday lunch.

When you arrive, it has that familiar "gastropub" feel that so many places are now doing. I personally don't mind this, although it is a bit generic.

We were not welcomed on arrival and had to wait in line at the bar to be shown to our table. Given that it was fairly quiet, we were also surprised how hard it was to catch the waiter's attention.

The menu was rather limited, but looked interesting. We ordered some olives to nibble on and then both went for the Sunday roast main.

Our food arrived quickly - so quickly in fact that we had hardly had any chance to nibble on the olives - what a shame.

The meat and roast potatoes were both good and worthy of 4 stars. Sadly the same cannot be said of the cold veg and dreadful Yorkshire pudding (dry, tasteless, cold cardboard). Being served cold veg is one of my absolute pet peeves, so forgive me if I get worked up over this!

At this price point, I was a bit disappointed with the meal. Also, we were not offered any sauces (mint sauce, horseradish etc.). We had to try and catch the waiter's eye for this while our food got cold(er).

Overall then not awful, but not really competitive at this price point either. When you have only 1 glass of soft drink and one main each, 35 pounds including tip for two is not bad, but there are several cheaper options with better food and service close by.

Indeed, if you like this kind of bistro food, in my opinion Brasserie Pascale in 2nd Avenue offers clearly better food and service for roughly the same price.

3 stars from me for being not bad but not really good enough at this price point, especially since there are so many good options for roughly half the price within a...

I visited the Connaught with my family for a meal, it was a Monday afternoon and whilst the pub and the garden were quietly buzzing the restaurant was empty apart from one couple, so the kitchen and waiting staff were not exactly rushed off their feet.

The waitress was moody and unsmiling and when we hadn't decided what we wanted to eat five minutes after sitting down she stalked off and I caught a glimpse of her rolling her eyes at one of her colleagues. I couldn’t believe the arrogance, interestingly to note that a couple of other reviewers have commented on the attitude of the waiting staff. The food turned up promptly enough but those of us who had ordered burgers discovered that the buns had been toasted to oblivion and were inedible. We complained (politely, might I add) and one of the waiters mumbled something and then shuffled off leaving us slightly bemused. Eventually, once we’d asked for the bill the waitress offered to discount one of the burgers, which they did, but in rather bad grace.

Other than the burnt burger buns the food was very good but rather overpriced considering there are an abundance of excellent places to go in Brighton and Hove where you’ll pay the same (or perhaps less) for equally and often better food, without putting up with arrogant, rude staff.

Go elsewhere; I’m certainly...

Go into the Connaught pub. If there is group, order a table in advance. We did. Baby changing facilities and everything. Drink beer for a little bit. Maybe smoke a cigarette out front at the tables. What you then do is order the Ham Hock with truffle Hollandaise eggs and marmite chips. Take that slowly. Those of us eating it glugged Italian white. I spent over half an hour eating it. The serving staff are cool as beans. The point is - if you are vaguely hungover, that ham hock plate is almost life changing. I nearly want to send the chef a tearful postcard.

Afterwards, once you've finished discussing the mind bending ham hock, or maybe you had the haddock with colcannon and champagne sauce - which was an emotional time for that eater - you go to do a dessert. At this point you break the submarine command codes and activate the cold red Maury dessert wine and tiramisu triple play combo. This is also very very serious. It turns up in a miniature steel bucket with chocolate soil and mint grass growing out the top. That tiramisu, with that cold Maury, makes life a worthwhile statement for both you, and the extremely kind people in the kitchen.

They also apparently have a kicking pub quiz on Sundays....