The Setting Sun Brighton

Eva and I haven't been to the Setting Sun (1 Windmill Street, Brighton, BN2 0GN 01273 626192) for quite sometime, so we popped in last night to try the new menu.

The Setting Sun is more of a wine bar/bistro rather than "pub" in the strictest sense of the word. It has light wood flooring, large leather sofas, bistro style wooden tables, a conservatory and a patio that affords stunning views of Brighton (if you can find seat there in the summer).

Sarah the manager took it over in 2014, there having been quite few changes in management in the previous years which caused chaos with the menu and the general running of the place. Sarah has brought stability and a friendly customer service attitude to the place, she also spruced it up with newly painted decor in 2014. In addition to Sarah there is Oggy, who is dog in residence and a very friendly cheerful little fellow.

The new menu includes soup, mussels, lamb shank, chicken breast, burgers, fish, halloumi, sticky toffee pudding etc; along with specials on certain days, such as sausage and mash.

We shared a bowl of mussels (moules mariniere, if you want the official name) as a starter, these were quite decent and came with a couple of chunks of bread.

We then each had the lamb shank (see photo above), which comes with pearl barley and roasted winter vegetables. To our view the dish needed mash in order to make it complete, and so we ordered a bowl to share. The meat was well cooked, and came cleanly off the bone. The stock which it was served with was flavoursome and not overpowering, and gave some much needed flavour to the pearl barley. The mash completed the dish and, to my view, should be made a standard part of this particular course.

Oggy was delighted to be gifted my lamb shank bone when I had finished with it, and proudly carried it off to a corner to munch on.

The bill came to around £63; this included a bottle of Pinot Rose, a coffee and two large Cointreaus.

Strip out the booze portion of the bill and, in my opinion, it is high when compared to the other pubs that serve food in Hanover. However, as noted, the Setting Sun isn't really a pub; so trying to compare it with the pubs in the area is not comparing like with like.