Suggest to a group of voracious meatlovers a visit to a vegetarian restaurant and you'll soon learn the meaning of the phrase "meatless panic". The worry seems to be that the menu will be full of those also-ran dishes that pass for the vegetarian option in most restaurants: essentially just meat-and-two-veg minus the meat.
One look at Terre à Terre's original, drool-inducing menu will calm all such panic. In fact, you'll forget completely that it is a vegetarian restaurant. Take it from me: it's simply one of the nicest, most delicious restaurants in Brighton. It's just somewhere you have to go.
That menu is certainly a fun read. A seemingly hopeless addiction to punning dish-names belies an incredibly serious commitment to food. Don't let the idea of having to ask for a "You Say Tomato ..." or a "Miso Pretty" hinder you: the idea seems to be to get you to shrug off conventional ideas of foodiness and try something new. New, and very, very good.
A good starter suggestion for first-time Terre à Terrers is the popular "Terre à Tapas", which contains taster items from every other starter dish, all beautifully presented and suitable for one very hungry person, or two curious ones saving themselves for their main course.
It takes many words to describe the depth of invention involved in a Terre à Terre's creation, so let me just reproduce one description from the menu - a work of art in itself: "Horchata and manchego souffle finished with paprika smoke foam, tomato flesh piquillo, blistered salt pepper padrons and pressed roast tomato jus, served with potato mousseline, stuffed deep fried fat green olives and fino freeze."
No, I didn't have a clue either, and, yes, I know it sounds fussy, but, my God, it was good. When it arrives you just stare at it, transfixed, wondering what kind of mad genius worked out you can do such crazy things to a vegetable and what kind of dogged tyrant tested out all manner of vegetable torture devices before finding the one that causes them to simply melt in the mouth and make sensible folk become ridiculously over-effusive about what is, basically, a humble tomato.
Whoever these characters were, I take my hat off to them - as well as unbuttoning my shirt slightly and perhaps undoing by belt a notch. I could eat their bizarre vegetable concoctions all day. I could eat their crazy puddings, meanwhile, for a good couple of months - particularly their "Hot Sticky Valrhona Choccy Fondant", which could plausibly be banned in some countries for causing a rather shameless number of groaning noises.
If I had one criticism, it would be that while watching a chef's imagination run amok is clearly fun, there are some points at which one yearns for the clarity of a single flavour, instead of nine or ten per plate - especially when it comes to dessert. On the other hand, the way the plates are laid out actually allows you to taste them one tiny bit at a time if you'd rather not pick up all the flavours in one big spoonful and make your mouth go crazy.
If, like us, you're the kind of diner that eats something and thinks "right- how can I go home and make this?" then good luck. Really. The phrase "life's too short to stuff a mushroom" is ideally followed up with "just go to Terre à Terre: they'll do it better anyway". But if you do want to do Terre à Terre at home, then you can - they sell a range of their favourite pickles, spreads and sauces in beautiful jam jars by the front door. I honestly dare you to leave without wanting to buy one.
· Terre a Terre, 71 East Street, Brighton BN1 1HQ
terreaterre.co.uk/index.htm
