Italian Night at English’s: Five Courses, Five Wines, One Very Good Thursday
We’ve always had a soft spot for Italy at English’s. It shows up in the wine list, it shows up on the specials board, and it shows up every time our chef Yuri starts talking about what his family used to cook at home.
So on Thursday 17 September we’re giving it a proper night of its own.
We’re teaming up with Passione Vino, the people who supply all the Italian wine you’ll find on our list, for a five-course dinner with a wine matched to every plate. Matteo Malquori from Passione Vino will be here in person to pour, talk you through each bottle and explain why it ended up next to that particular dish. It’s £85 per person and the wines are all included in that.
Doors from 7pm. Here’s what the evening looks like.
Yuri’s Italy, on a plate
The whole thing started with Yuri.
He’s Italian, and this menu is his. Not a generic run through the greatest hits, but the sort of food he actually grew up around, reworked with the seafood we’re known for. That means less red-sauce-and-garlic-bread and more of what you’d actually be served if you sat down at a table somewhere in Italy on a Thursday evening.
There’s confit mackerel with stracciatella. There’s baby squid stuffed and served with roasted peppers and a basil purée. There’s a cod fillet cooked in cartoccio, which is the Italian way of saying it steams in its own parcel with olives, capers, thyme and spicy yellow datterini tomatoes doing all the work around it.
It’s Italian cooking, done by someone who has a genuine reason to cook it.
The wine side: Passione Vino
Passione Vino are our Italian wine supplier, and Matteo has picked all five bottles specifically for this menu.
This is the bit that lifts a nice dinner into something you’ll actually remember. Matteo will be moving around the room all evening, so you get the story behind each wine as it lands: where it’s from, who made it, and what it’s doing for the dish in front of you. Ask him questions. He likes it.
Between the five there’s a fair bit of Italy covered. A dry sparkling Lambrusco from Modena. A Catarratto from a small natural producer in western Sicily. A white from up in the Dolomites. A Piedmontese red served slightly chilled. And a Vin Santo from Tuscany to see off dessert.
If you’ve only ever met Lambrusco in its sweet, fizzy, 1980s form, the Paltrinieri “Radice” is going to be a surprise. It’s bone dry, pale pink, bottle-fermented, and it goes with bruschetta and mackerel far better than it has any right to.
The full menu
Bruschetta Confit mackerel, stracciatella, tomato & oregano Paltrinieri Lambrusco di Sorbara “Radice”
Stuffed Baby Squid Roasted peppers & basil purée Aldo Viola “Urano 159” Catarratto, Terre Siciliane
Potato Gnocchetti Clams, prosciutto & lovage Fanti “Pritianum”, Dolomiti
Cartoccio Cod fillet, olives, spicy yellow datterini, capers & thyme Oggero Alberto Roero “Sandro” — served slightly chilled
Caprese Mascarpone, raspberry purée & orange Buccianera Vin Santo dell’Etruria Centrale
£85 per person, all wines included.
That last course deserves a word. A caprese, but pudding: mascarpone in place of the mozzarella, raspberry purée where the tomato would be, orange running through it. Yuri’s idea. It works.
Why a wine dinner beats a normal night out
You can eat well in Brighton on any given Thursday. What you can’t usually do is sit down to five courses that were designed as a set, with the person who chose the wine standing next to you explaining his reasoning.
It’s a good one for a date, a good one for a birthday, and a very good one if you’re the sort of person who reads the back label. It’s also a nice way to see The Lanes on a weeknight, when the streets have calmed down and the terrace is quiet enough to actually hear each other.
We’ve been serving Brighton from this site on East Street since 1945, and events like this are among our favourite things to put on. They tend to fill.
How to book
Italian Night at English’s, in collaboration with Passione Vino Thursday 17 September, from 7:00pm 29–31 East Street, Brighton, BN1 1HL £85 per person, including all five wines
Book through TheFork on our restaurant page — scroll down to the events section and pick the 17 September Italian Night option.