Mr. A and are are fans of the Gingerman Restaurants group, which has four good food spots in and around Brighton.  Their latest venture, The Flint House, in a brand new “lane” (Hannington’s Lane) built in Brighton’s famous “The Lanes”, is the only one of the group not to use ‘Ginger’ in its name, instead preferring to reference the historic flint building it forms a part of.  The Flint House does not take bookings, so we ambled along one Sunday afternoon at 2.30pm and walked straight in. We had a choice of seats at counters overlooking the pass, or looking out of a large window, or at standard wooden tables. We chose the former and ordered a House Negroni “livener” whilst we studied the paper menu, which acts as a place setting.

We found the menu’s list of “small plates” very inviting, so we ordered 8 dishes to share, costing between £5 and £8.50 each, water and a bottle of Orange wine.  Our first plate was “Pickled Celeriac, Crisp Bread, Walnut Oil, Apple” which also had hazelnuts for an extra texture. I found this dish to be a sharp, fresh palate livener, though the celeriac was a bit chewy rather than crisp. 8/10

Next up was a wooden platter of torn pieces of crisp flatbread topped with snow-white lardo and pieces of pickled walnut, which I really enjoyed. The Italian lardo wasn’t smoked (usually my preference) but it was so smooth and soft and had a lovely flavour, and the richness was well foiled by the earthy walnuts. 8/10

Plates were arriving thick and fast at this stage, and the next one up was “Blue Cheese Stuffed Dates, Pancetta”.  Wow, this tasted terrific, even though it looked like a kangaroo testicle off “I’m a Celebrity, get me out of here”.  The cheese, fruit and pancetta wrapping all worked really well together. 9/10

Our fourth plate was “Ortiz Anchovies on Toast”.  A good slice of particularly nice white bloomer toast was simply topped with a scattering of the good quality hand trimmed Spanish fillets, circles of pickled shallot and herbs. This was a very simple dish, yet bursting with flavour; something I’ll be copying at home very soon! 8/10

Dish number five was labelled “Braised Squid, ‘Nduja, Olive, Tomato” and featured a mound of slowly braised squid slices in a tomato sauce with black olives and a ‘Nduja sausage crumb on top, plus a dollop of aioli and a slice of toasted bloomer on the side.  The ‘Nduja provided a nice warm, not hot, spice, which suited me, but overall I wasn’t inspired by this dish. 6/10

Next we shared “Bream Ceviche with Golden Raisins, Chilli, Coriander”; a bright and colourful plate of fresh fish with a sharp lime sauce, balanced by the sweet raisins. The chillis were Dutch, so they weren’t that fiery, which I thought was the right approach. 8/10

Our seventh dish was called “Miso Mackerel, Fennel, Pomegranate”. The miso flavour was very light, the mackerel was a little small and not particularly flavoursome, but the fennel and pomegranate was a nice foil to what oiliness the fish did have. 6/10

Our final savoury dish was “Roast Hispi, Ravigote Sauce”.  I first became a fan of the hispi after having it at 64 Degrees in Brighton. Flint House’s version had punchy flavours, but I thought the cabbage was too greasy and a touch overcooked. 7/10

We’d had a good lunch and I was full, but Mr A wanted dessert, so we ordered a couple to share.

We ordered “Blue Cheese Crumpet, Sussex Honey” after seeing one leave the Pass. It was a butter-sozzled crumpet topped with grilled blue cheese and honey, and was such a comforting rich indulgence. But it proved too much for my restricted stomach capability, so Mr A ate most of it. But I appreciated the originality of the dish.  8/10

The Profiteroles were stuffed with white chocolate mousse and came with blackberries and a salted caramel and apple sauce. The profiterole pastry was crisp rather than choux-y, but the flavour combinations worked well. 7/10

We rounded things off with a double espresso each, which was a little bitter and didn’t have much of a crema. 5/10

We did enjoy our lunch at The Flint House!  We had some excellent service from a few of the team, we liked the bright venue, we liked the menu and the food we ate. For our ten shared plates, cocktails, mineral water, a £44 bottle of wine, coffees and service charge I paid £154, which I was quite happy with. 7.5/10

IMHO 64 Degrees is a better option for small plate dining in Brighton. Its innovation and creativity as well as its cooking techniques are just that bit better than The Flint House. And 64 Degrees changes its menu very frequently (sometime during service), whereas the Flint House menu (acting as a place setting) appears more set (though there was a small ‘specials’ board).