Hungry Monk Restaurant

The Hungry Monk is a charming restaurant nestling in the foothills of the South Downs, between Eastbourne and Brighton.  You can choose to have pre-dinner drinks on the terrace or in one of the cosy sitting rooms before finding your way through to the beamy main dining room for dinner.

Famous as the birthplace of Banoffi pie, the Hungry Monk has also become well-known for its cook books, and our four grown up children stand as living monuments to their efficacy. The interiors are simply gorgeous, rural Sussex at its best and the sort of place you might like your own home to be.

Menus follow a seasonal approach, and no prizes for deducing that the one mentioned here is autumnal in nature. It seems right to find rabbit on the menu, in the form of a terrine with pistachio, spiced prune. Celeriac and mushroom soup is a happy combination of flavours, and it is good to see this worthy vegetable being deployed more at discerning tables. Seared scallops and King prawns come comfortably seated on a coriander and hazelnut mash, yet another inspired flavour blend.

Main courses might be described as comfort food with style, starting with organic salmon with a pink peppercorn crust and yellow pepper sauce, moving on to fillet of pork with apple and black pudding and Calvados sauce. Vegetarians can enjoy leek and polenta cake with red pepper sauce.

The monk is not so hungry as to have time to spare for those who have differing views on how they like their duck served. Norfolk duckling provides the crisp breast version, or if you like your breast pink Barbary ducks will oblige, and both versions come served with delicious spiced plums.

Whilst not everyone might agree, most accept that it is difficult to better well cared for fillet of Scotch beef, and here it features with girolles, chestnuts and shallots. All main courses include the appropriate potatoes and seasonal vegetables, and should you not require the sauce to go with your dish just let them know.

No menu at the Hungry Monk would be complete without banoffi pie, conceived there in 1972 and now an iconic pudding worldwide. Said to be the Iron Lady's pud of choice, it involves the boiling of unopened cans of condensed milk for 5 hours. I recall thinking of this as the equivalent of culinary suicide, but it works, and provides the distinctive toffee filling for which the dish is famous.

However, there is life beyond banoffi, and it is clear that the monk is, or was, possessed of a sweet tooth and enjoyed his damson and rice pudding brûlée, never mind the baked figs with mascarpone or the blackberry and apple sponge pudding. On certain occasions an assiette of the monk's puddings are available. And as one might expect from an establishment that associates itself so clearly with a particular sex, there is a savoury - of croque monsieur; but if topped with a poached egg it becomes a madame, so ladies, all is not lost.

There are four beautiful private dining rooms for parties of 4 to 16.

A click on their Website will fill in the gaps and update the menu.