Restaurant review: Terre à Terre

On Saturday, I joined the hordes of excited diners as I went for my first meal out since March. I was lucky enough to be in Brighton visiting my auntie Jill for the reopening of the fabulous Terre à Terre, where they serve some of the best food I’ve ever eaten! As a vegetarian, I’m always delighted to go to a veggie restaurant like Terre à Terre where I can actually eat everything on the menu rather than just the standard three sad offerings that can be found on a regular restaurant’s menu (one of which is almost always a flavourless risotto), and I wouldn’t have chosen anywhere else for my first post-lockdown meal.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of a restaurant in this new world, but the team at Terre à Terre did an incredible job of making everyone feel comfortable and relaxed, despite the fact that it’s a different dining experience to any we’ve ever known. Capacity was significantly reduced to allow for suitable social distancing, and all the staff wore protective visors, which, though surreal at first, definitely helped with putting customers who may have been nervous at ease. The staff were all clearly delighted to be back to work, with an ever-friendly attitude and smiles on their faces at all times. Customers are given the option to be directly served or to have their meals placed on another table for them to collect, in order to limit contact, but everyone seemed to feel happy with regular service, ourselves included! Though the atmosphere is considerably different to what we are used to due to the smaller crowds, it was clear that everyone felt excited to be able to return to a semblance of normality after spending so many months in confinement.

The fact they were operating a reduced menu didn’t make it any easier to decide between the mouth-watering dishes on offer, as even with fewer to choose from they all still sound delicious, and it took our waitress four trips to our table before we’d finally made up our minds on what we were going to order! We started off with a beautifully fluffy focaccia with olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dip it in, and a plate of crispy and wonderfully flavoursome Lavash, which I’d never tried before but would now recommend to anyone visiting Terre à Terre, as it was so delicious! I washed these down with a couple of elderflower tipples before moving onto our main courses.

Chana Chaat main

For our mains, Jilly had decided on the Bao Wow halloumi buns, and I had gone for the Chana Chaat. The Bao Wow are steamed buns filled with an insanely tasty halloumi filling, and served with various dips and extra bits, and they’re honestly one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten – a compliment of the highest order from someone that loves food as much as I do! I think a lot of people could be fooled into not missing meat with these, which is the whole premise of what Terre à Terre do, they make the food so good and replace the meat element with such good quality veggie stuff that you wouldn’t even notice it wasn’t there with a lot of the dishes – as my dad says, when he cheats on meat, he does it with Terre à Terre. My Chana Chaat had a gorgeous tangy flavour with each bite adding a new level of taste sensation to the dish, and the puri breads that came with it were perfectly crisp and added exactly the right amount of crunch to my meal.

To finish off we ordered a lemon posset (for Jill) and an espresso martini (for me), and though I can’t speak to what the lemon posset tasted like, it was beautifully presented, just like all of the other gorgeously photogenic dishes you can get at Terre à Terre, and Jilly seemed very pleased with her choice of dessert! As for my espresso martini, it was deliciously smooth and creamy, and the coffee was strong without being overwhelming, so all in all it was the perfect dessert choice for me!

I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed going out for food, but it’s one of my favourite things to do, and I’m thrilled that I started off on such a high point with my visit to Terre à Terre. If you’re in Brighton, please give them a visit, you absolutely won’t regret it! Supporting our independents is more important now than it ever has been before, and I know how much they appreciate the support!

10/10