Since I moved to Brighton last year, the huge, imposing red hotel on Brighton's seafront has intrigued me. So when DoubleTree by Hilton Brighton Metropole gave us the opportunity to try out its new zero-waste menu, I simply could not refuse. What is the zero waste concept? The menu was launched in April in a bid to reduce waste in the hotel's kitchen and the amount of rubbish sent to landfill by 50 per cent.
The idea is to repurpose leftover food, for example, chicken waste can be used to make sauces and left-over breakfast pastries can be turned into bread-and-butter pudding for dessert. The menu details exactly what food was repurposed for each dish. What was the food like? The food was certainly very creative and the portions were perfect, not pretentious.
My partner and I shared the focaccia suggested as a hors-d'oeuvre - to save more room for dessert. It turned out to be enough for both of us and was delicious. It was served with fennel oil and black olive butter which was brilliant, especially as the flavours were very subtle.
We enjoyed the focaccia with a glass of Montepulciano D'Abruzzo (Image: Charlotte Becquart/The Argus) We then tried the grilled tender stem broccoli and cucumber salad which - and I know I'm going to sound boring - I immediately fell in love with. Hear me out. The broccoli stem mousse it was served with was extremely light, to the point that my partner noted it felt "a bit like a sorbet".
That and the sesame dressing, slightly salty and spicy, wer.
