12b Meeting House Lane, Brighton (01273 323 008)
Meal for two, including wine and service, £50-80
Imagine you are Neanderthal man (or woman). You are walking along a prehistoric beach, wondering whether to invent the wheel and thinking about what to kill for lunch in the meantime, when you spy a small, knobbly rock lying in the surf. Being an inquisitive Neanderthal, you start beating the rock against a stone until - hurrah! - it breaks open to reveal... a lump of snot. Which you decide to eat. And so humanity discovers the joys of the oyster.
It sounds simple enough put like that, doesn't it, but I am still baffled as to how we made such an unlikely gastronomic leap. The usual explanation is that we watched the animal world and, seeing what they liked to gorge on, followed suit. This doesn't do it for me. There's a whole bunch of crap my cat likes to eat, but I'm not putting any of it in my mouth. Mind you, the oyster makes sense compared with some of the things we ingest. Who decided that intestines would make terrific sausage skins, and that kidneys, the organs that filter bodily fluids, would make a great pie? Just how hungry was the first person who boiled a turnip, and what possessed anybody to risk a severed finger to get at the sweet meat which lies beneath the lobster's armour?
Nevertheless, I regard oysters as one of life's great pleasures - a concentration of everything that is invigorating about the best of seafood. So I was always bound to love Riddle & Finns, a new fish restaurant which opened three months ago in Brighton's Lanes. Inside there are red-tiled floors and white-tiled walls and, instead of tables, high marble bars surrounded by bar stalls.
In the window is a wet fish display, from which you can buy home supplies (much as at the Fishworks chain). The kitchen is at the front, with big picture windows on to the street so you can watch the chefs toil. It is solid and utilitarian, rather than pretty. It means business.
While you study the menu, chirpy waitresses bring baskets of dangerous bread. Dangerous not just because of its freshness but because of the bowls of garlicky mayonnaise, smoked mackerel pate and spiky horseradish that come with it. Yes, they charge for it without telling you, but it's hard to begrudge £1.50 for this. Purists will, I know, regard some of the menu as fussy. You can have your oysters - rocks only at this time of year - unadorned, but they also offer them with more than half a dozen toppings. A few of these sound contrived: does an oyster really need to be paired with mango, lime leaves and black mustard seeds?
Probably not, but others made sense. From the hot list, the smoked salmon and sea urchin butter brought out the oyster's hidden richness. From the cold list, both pickled cucumber with smoked bacon and pickled ginger with spring onion and soy sauce (the latter, sensibly, on the side) worked because of the acidity of the main topping. It's the same principle which makes sherry vinegar such a natural accompaniment.
Elsewhere the menu offers bulging fruits de mer with whole crab for £40 for two (£50 for lobster instead), which seems a fair price. Not cheap, but fair; in these days of stock depletion, seafood should never be cheap. There's fish pie, whole crab salads and a changing catch of the day. Smaller dishes are more intricate. Chewy, sweet whelks, which so rarely get the attention they deserve, turn up sliced and sauteed in a warm salad of chilli and spring onions. A generous serving of eight langoustine for just under £9 comes in a creamy white wine, shallot and thyme sauce. I also liked dense monkfish cheeks served scampi style in a crisp breadcrumb shell with a coarse tartar. Chips are of the crisp, thin kind. There's a short wine list starting at £12.95, plus what they claim is the longest list of champagnes in town.
This Riddle & Finns, set up by the people behind a well-regarded brasserie down on Brighton's beach called Due South, is intended to be the first in a chain along the south coast. I can see how that would work. For all the twiddly bits - the pickled ginger, the sea urchin butter - it understands the virtues of simplicity. Ingredients come first. Appetite rules. Neanderthal man would love it.
