Webbe's at the Fish Café in Rye came very close to impressing us but somehow fell short. This is particularly galling because, as previously mentioned, their ethos really appeals to me. When we found out that Webbe's have a restaurant right next to the net drying huts at Hastings, one that specialises in fish landed from boats not 50 yards away, we had to give it a try. So at the first sign of a bit of sunshine on a rare mid-week day off together we jumped into the car and ambled off down to the coast through the back lanes to check it out.
It really is in the perfect location, right opposite the new Jerwood Gallery and the fantastic old fisherman's huts and net drying sheds on the front near Hastings Old Town. We walked around the huts and saw a lot of fresh plaice, lemon sole, Dover sole, and lots of fish I didn't recognise for sale from little kiosks right next to the boats that caught them. It's a great part of Hastings and well worth the journey on its own. There is a fishing museum, what used to be a Sea Life Centre but is now an independent aquarium, the East Lift funicular railway and a smugglers museum all within a five minute walk of a large car park. And after lunch I recommend taking a stroll along the old High Street and a rummage through the antique and junk shops found there.
Talking of lunch.....Webbe's presents itself very well. It has the look of a Spanish Taverna on the outside, but don't be fooled because it's a good mixture of classic and contemporary inside. All the tables are ranged across the front of he building, so half are in the windows. If you prefer, you can perch yourself on a stool at the bar and eat oysters and drink champagne, whatever takes your fancy. We were shown to a little table in the window at the right hand end of the dining room. Rather like the Rye Webbe's, the pass and some of the food prep areas are on full view and diners are encouraged to watch their dishes being assembled.
The menu held very few surprises, given the location. A fairly short list of main courses speaks to me of fresh produce and minimal use of the freezer, there were a handful of meat dishes, a couple of salads and ten-ish fish dishes on offer. The refreshing surprise on the carte was a selection of taster dishes on the list of starters, an imaginative idea that we were keen to try. Our waitress explained that each dish was two mouthfuls, or two fillets, and is designed to give you a taste of something without you having to order a whole dish. We chose five different tasters to share as our starter, picking a few slightly unusual things (for us, anyway!) to try. We had salt and pepper squid with chilli jam, potted brown shrimp and toast, sardine fillets with gazpacho dip, soused herring in honey mustard sauce, and tempura cod with sweet and sour sauce. It all looked very good indeed, and we were generally very pleased with our choices. The squid and the sardines were certainly the high points, both perfectly cooked and absolutely delicious. The shrimp and the herring were pretty good, but the cod was very disappointing indeed. It was tasteless and obviously unseasoned, not what I expected from a specialist seafood kitchen.
I'll come back to the selection of starters, or tasters, or whatever you want to call them later. For the main event I went for a seriously local speciality, plaice fillets with brown shrimps cooked in butter, and Dee chose smoked haddock fish cakes on creamed leeks. The waitress advised us that although the fish cakes could be considered a dish in its own right, my plaice came on its own and that I should probably order some side dishes to accompany it. I chose triple cooked chips and a plum tomato salad (at an extra £2.50 and £2.00 respectively) and sat back to wait. As with our starters, the food arrived quite quickly and was nicely presented. My fish was tasty and perfectly cooked, and there was plenty of it. The chips were really good, crunchy on the outside and fluffy inside, I almost wished I'd ordered the classic fish & chips, but not quite. The plum tomato salad, on the other hand, turned out to be a sliced tomato with olive oil drizzled on it. More of that later as well.
Dee's fish cakes were so overpoweringly smokey that neither of us were very keen on them when we tried them in isolation, but when eaten with the creamed leaks the dish as a whole made sense as the flavours worked very well together. The portion was enormous and even with our combined appetites we couldn't finish it all, each cake was the size of a pool ball.
We shared an absolutely delicious chocolate mousse with espresso cream and caramelised banana for desert, along with a very good cappuccino for me and a good quality pot of tea for Dee. Again, desert was nicely presented and each element was perfectly executed. The tiny ball of pistachio ice cream linked the textures really well.
Over all then, a really good meal, you'd think, right? Well.....yes....and no. This is our second visit to a Webbe's restaurant and it is the second time we have left feeling a little disappointed but without really being able to put our fingers on exactly why this should be. Having thought about it for a couple of days, though, I think I'm groping towards the answer.
When I pay this much for a meal I want the chef to have done more than just cook what I order. I want him to put a dish of food together that features elements that compliment each other. The customer should not have to do this part of the process himself! For example, a good chef knows that balance is necessary, and that each dish requires sharp notes to offset rich flavours, saltiness to balance sweetness and so on. So if I have to choose my own vegetables and so on, how do I know what will best compliment the main component? This strikes me not only as simply another way to charge each customer an extra fiver, but extremely lazy on the part of the chef and the establishment! So to return to the taster dishes, how do I know what is likely to go well together, and also compliment my choice of main course? By all means, offer the tasters like tapas, as a stand alone thing perhaps, but if you have pretensions of fine dining I'm afraid you must work harder before the customer walks in the door. Sorry, Webbe's, it was an excellent effort but I don't think we'll be back. There are just too many really good places in Hastings doing really good fish & chips for a lot less money. True, the surroundings might not be as classy, but the fish probably came off the same boat.
On our post-lunch stroll round the old town we stumbled across a little bakery that over-delivered on just about every level. Judges Bakery, as it turns out, is a bit of an institution in Hastings. Fantastic little fruit pies, big fat flapjacks, crusty bread, huge Italian meringues, a fat boy's heaven indeed! Having chosen a couple of little apple pies to have for supper later, we turned to look at the rest of the little shop and found it packed with unusual and interesting produce. Fresh fruit and vegetables, local organic meat and sausages, big slabs of cake, it all looked delicious. Not the place to do your weekly shop, perhaps, but certainly somewhere to visit for ingredients if you're planning something a bit special or simply fancy a treat. Probably not worth the effort of going all the way to Hastings just to visit this shop, but if you're here anyway, walk up the Old London Road and find it. Pick something nice for later, eh?
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