City leaders enjoyed tasters and cocktails overlooking the sea at the launch of the spring food and cocktail menu in the freshly decorated Waterhouse Bar & Terrace at the Hilton Brighton Metropole recently.
New executive chef, Peter Buckingham, has joined forces with Waterhouse bar manager Nick Heasman to create ‘perfect pairings’, bringing together some of the most delicious new ‘grazing plates’ and sumptuous layered afternoon tea menus with taste tingling cocktails that bring out the best of the local flavours.
Said Howard Lewis, General Manager, Hilton Brighton Metropole: “We have a superb new team and we aim to offer tea by the sea in style, with an exciting menu and beautiful surroundings, including new heaters and parasols to enjoy our unique sea view terrace.
“The Waterhouse Bar & Terrace offers just the place for business people, ladies who lunch and families to enjoy the most fashionable afternoon meal, sliding gently into cocktail hour and watching the sun go down on Brighton’s seafront.”
The new menu brings some of the best local ingredients to the table, including Hailsham lamb from Ashdown Farm in East Sussex, mackerel caught off the Hove coast, and even Brighton Rock crushed to enhance a spectacular and unique crunchy cheese cake.
Cocktails combine classics with specially-created drinks carefully matched with the food, offering flavours that cut through with a tart but delightful white wine and pineapple Brighton Rocks cocktail, the Sussex Mule providing a limey alter-ego for the local lamb gourmet burger and local gin based Blackdown Bramble setting off the mackerel and capers to perfection.
The new ‘Tea by the Sea Seaside Delights’ menu offers a fun twist on the Brighton seaside location, with a range of sumptuous cakes to choose from, along with quirky candy floss cupcakes, baby toffee apples and small jam doughnuts, all hand made in the hotel’s own kitchens. The sandwich selection also includes the best of Sussex ingredients, with Shoreham crab, cheese made in local dairies and delicious local ham.
To wash it down, guests can choose from a wide selection of teas and coffees or enjoy the new ‘Champagne Tea by the Sea’ cocktail, blending bubbles with Earl Grey infused Sussex Gin, or ‘Hedgerow Fizz’, combining a light sparkling white wine with locally sourced elderflower cordial with a frozen fruit garnish.
Children are also well catered for with the ‘Mad Hatter Afternoon Tea’ offering a three tier loaded stand of their very own, with ham, marmite and jam sandwiches and strawberry jam tarts topped with candy floss, mini Brighton rock and vanilla or milk froth whisked up at the bar.
Hilton Brighton Metropole is donating £1 for every afternoon tea sold to local charities Chestnut Tree House, Rockinghorse and Whitehawk Inn.
Howard Lewis and his team aim to make the Waterhouse Bar & Terrace, which is open daily, a destination which offers the very best in hospitality and style.
www.hilton.com/brightonmet.