City boy turns Sussex produce shopkeeper

A former investment banker has turned shopkeeper and is refurbishing the derelict antiques auction house in Upper Gardner Street to create a superb local food store and restaurant, Thorne’s Foods, bringing quality local produce into the heart of the city seven days a week.

31 year-old Jason, who lives in Brighton with his wife and baby, has had a passion for local food since he was young and aims to take on supermarkets by making fresh, seasonal local food available to people in Brighton & Hove, with opening hours to suit busy lifestyles

“I have been working on this project for two years now, raising capital from private investors, banks and getting to know our wonderful, award-winning Sussex food and drink producers, so that we can offer the best ingredients in the city,” said Jason.

“I want to offer good value quality food which can’t normally be easily accessed in the city centre and which people can pick up on their way home from work, so that they can eat well and support the local economy. I want to cut out the difficulties, and make it as easy as turning left to Thorne’s or right to the supermarket.”

Thorne’s intends to open from 9:30am to 8:30pm, selling a full range of groceries, including a high quality butcher’s, a deli counter, green groceries, wine and a huge spread of fresh, local ingredients and fine foods made in Sussex and surrounding areas. Suppliers will be chosen locally wherever possible says Jason, in recognition that not everything the modern food shopper desires is made in the county. The food will also be served in a market kitchen upstairs allowing customers to taste what is on offer and in season, whilst helping to manage wastage through the shop.

“I was so delighted to find the old antique auction house because it lends itself beautifully to my aspirations for the design of Thorne’s. It has a huge cobbled entrance way and high, vaulted ceilings, with a great space for the market kitchen, with lots of daylight coming through huge windows with wonderful views over the city’s rooftops,” he continued.

“We are restoring and celebrating the unique old features of the building, whilst installing all mod cons and upgrading facilities. We want to create a vintage, rustic farmer’s market atmosphere and style, but with the convenience of a supermarket for busy people in the city to enjoy.”

Thorne’s will create 20 new jobs in Brighton and this is just the start of Jason Hurwitz’s ambitions, as he hopes to create more local food stores in other cities in the future, bringing local produce to people who don’t normally have the time or means to access them.

Jason is seeking further investors to help meet the increased refurbishment cost in restoring the historic building; anyone interested should contact him at Jason.Hurwitz@ThornesFoods.co.uk.

Thorne’s Foods will open in July and Jason intends to hold a range of community events to involve and encourage local people to buy local.

Sussex Foodie News April 2011

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Sussex spring harvest celebrated by Brighton Food Fest

Tens of thousands enjoyed the sun and tasty fare at the Big Sussex Market, part of the Brighton & Hove Food and Drink Festival’s ‘spring harvest’, this weekend in the North Laine.

The festival kicked off on Friday with a hilarious 100-metre city chefs pancake race on Brighton Pier, won by Michael Bowell of Hotel du Vin, followed by a VIP party and Sussex beer festival at Pub du Vin. WJ King supplied their new Market Porter ale, which was also incorporated into chocolate truffles by Cocoa Loco for the occasion.

Public voting also opened for the Brighton & Hove at www.brightonfoodawards.com, sponsored by new legal firm in the city wetalklaw.com and gourmetbritain.com, the national website for foodies. The first ever Sussex Gourmet Tour, a vintage bus tour of Sussex food producers yesterday, was sold out and the city’s first Restaurant Week is also now on (April 1^st to 8^th), with restaurants offering £10 lunch and £15 dinner menus; and cafés serving up a £5 deal.

“This spring we will be celebrating everything that is great about Sussex produce and our wonderful international Brighton food offer and we welcome everyone who wants to get involved, by holding events or sponsoring our main attractions which attract thousands of food and drink lovers,” said Nick Mosley, festival director.

The first ticketed Live Food Show will be held next Saturday April 9^th, including chef demonstrations from invited restaurants alongside wine tastings and a superb three-course lunch at the Radisson Blu, tickets are on sale at www.brightonfoodfestival.com. Foodwriter Andrew Kay, hosting the Live Food Show, will also announce the winner of the children’s Great Brighton Ice Cream Competition at Boho Gelato. Over 1,500 entries have been received and a shortlist of five finalists’ ice creams have been made up for judging. The winner will get to see their ice cream made, as well as winning a giant tube of ice cream and cones to enjoy with their school mates.

“There is so much to enjoy in our city and the surrounding countryside and we have created a festival programme which represents all aspects of our foodie hub on the south coast, so please do support us and come along and enjoy our events,” continued Nick Mosley.

Paula Seager, MD of Natural PR, who runs the Brighton & Hove Foodie Awards and has supported the festival for many years, is also calling for votes: “Last year 5,000 people voted in the Foodie Awards and this year we want to do even better to support our wonderful local eateries – so please get online from 1^st April at www.brightonfoodawards.com and vote for your favourites!”

Details of festival events, including associated foody fun, such as the fabulous Chocolate Festival on New Road on April 16^th and 17^th, can be found at www.brightonfoodfestival.com.

Sussex journalists eat steak for Comic Relief

A group of journalists including James Wallin from the Argus, Jonesy from Juice FM and Rob Marks from Brighton Visitor magazine, also the city's 'ghost walk' tour guide, took on the great steak eating challenge at the Old Bank Steak & Grill in Kemptown to support Red Nose Day.

Jonesy was star of the day, managing to eat a full four pounds of rump steak along with a side order of chips, sponsored by dozens of his listeners, whilst the others managed half their steaks before being forced to stop with dry mouths and full stomachs.

They were raising funds for Comic Relief which is this year supporting Sussex charity Sightsavers, which prevents avoidable blindness in developing countries. The journalists have been promoting their cause, which was shown in the BBC1 Red Nose Day Celebrity Trek.

Said owner, Helen Bailey: “The Old Bank Steak & Ribs is Kemptown’s friendly, new steak house restaurant, serving delicious food with great service in a warm and comfortable setting. We are aiming to be the ‘Cheers’ of the neighbourhood - a rarity in the city, offering quality steak and ribs, local catch of the day, grilled chicken and vegetarian dishes at good value prices.”

“The whole night was about raising funds for Comic Relief and Sightsavers, which is a fantastic cause."

Star quality chef appointed by stadium

A former personal chef to the prime minister and multiple award winning cook, Frederick Tobin, has been appointed as head chef at the American Express Community Stadium to serve superb quality food throughout the stadium.

Fred’s star-studded career includes posts at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s Country Residence, the Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane, Harrods in Knightsbridge, The Grove in Rickmansworth and most recently, the Felbridge Hotel in East Grinstead, winning many rosettes and accolades along the way.

Elliott Moore, general manager of catering at the stadium, said: “We received nearly a hundred excellent applications for this job and went through a rigorous process to select our chef – but without a doubt, Fred was the right man for the job and we very much look forward to working with him to take stadium food to a new level in quality and service.”

The final stage of the recruitment included a true MasterChef-style ‘cook off’ between shortlisted chefs, held at Queens Park Rangers’ Loftus Road Stadium, where Fred cooked from a mystery box of ingredients, creating seared supreme of salmon with a soused potato and spring onion salad and supreme of chicken filled with cream cheese and mushroom mousse.

Fred, who was born in Crawley and lives there now with his wife and four children, said: “Working on my home turf in one of the most exciting projects in the region really is a dream come true and my goal is to create a new benchmark in excellence for stadium food. This is an awesome project and is something that I can really get my teeth into – it’s huge for Sussex, huge for the South and huge for me!”

Fred will be overseeing seven kitchens, eight 1901 Club corporate hospitality suites, 14 kiosks, each with their own chef, a supporters restaurant, as well as a huge range of non-match day events, from trade fairs and conferences to weddings and private parties. He intends to use as much local, Sussex produce as possible in the food served at the stadium and is already in discussions with local suppliers, seeking out the best ingredients.

The stadium events team is now open and ready for business, now taking bookings for conferencing and events in their high spec event rooms with capacity from 2 - 500 - you can contact the team at EventsBrighton@azure.uk.com or call: 01273 542343.

Seeking sponsors for Brighton & Hove Foodies 2011

The Brighton & Hove Foodies last year attracted 5,000 votes from members of the public and thousands of pounds of free media coverage and this year promises to be one of the hottest sponsorship opportunities for businesses wanting to raise their profile or rub shoulders with the best food outlets in the city.

Launching on 1st April as part of the Brighton & Hove Food and Drink Festival's spring harvest, it will be hard to miss the Brighton & Hove Foodie Awards 2011, with guaranteed regular coverage from Andrea Fox on Juice FM and Andrew Kay in Latest7 every month, extensive regional news and business media coverage, as well as 'vote for us' cards for people to pick up all over the city.

"We thought the awards would be successful, but it surpassed all our expectations last year and restaurants, food pubs, cafes and food shops have embraced it fully, competing enthusiastically by encouraging their customers to vote for them," said Paula Seager, MD of Natural PR.

We will be announcing our leaders - those in each category with the most votes - every month, making a great regular news moment and will culminate the awards with a lively and stylish awards event, hosted by Andrea and Andrew, to present trophies to the winners in early October, as the grand finale of the main Brighton & Hove Food and Drink Festival month.

Businesses interested in participating should call Natural PR's awards coordinator, Sandra Murphy, on Tel: 01273 857242 or email: sandra@naturalpr.biz

Kings Old Ale wins national award

Horsham-based brewery WJ King today won the Silver Medal at the National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester for its Kings Old Ale, in the old ales and strong milds category.

Head Brewer Ian Burgess, who joined the WJ King team less than a year ago, leaving Harveys of Lewes where he brewed for 19 years, created this beer, which won the Champion Beer of Britain, London and South East Regional Beer in March 2010, taking it through to the national awards this week.

Said Ian Burgess: ‘After 30 years of brewing, this is my first ‘individual’ award and it is a tremendous honour and achievement after only 6 months of taking on my very own brew house. I accept this award as part of an amazing team surrounding me and I hope together we will have more awards to come and enjoy seeing customers across the South East of England enjoying WJ King’s traditional hand crafted ales.’

“Kings Old Ale is a multiple award winning dark brown Old Ale with an intense dry, coffee and slightly smoky aroma. There is a delicious and satisfying mouthfeel of silky viscosity before the taste of coffee and molasses covers your tastebuds. The aftertaste of liquorice from the malt and slight spice from the relatively light use of hops complements the preceding flavours very well and forms the perfect end to this beautiful beer.

Nigel Lambe, Chief Executive of WJ King, who together with Head Brewer Ian Burgess, bought the brewery in June last year, said: “We are excited to be winning awards so soon after taking on the brewery. Ian is a true master of brewing, so we are really lucky to be working with him and plan to bring out many more innovative and popular beers, like our Brighton Best, Horsham Best and Red River.”

With a 200 year tradition of brewing some of the most respected and enjoyed Sussex ales, WJ King has evolved into a new style of micro brewery, using only the finest natural and local ingredients and traditional brewing techniques to produce the finest quality local ales.

The brewery recently opened a Brewery shop at its Horsham address in Foundry Lane, selling a range of beers from single bottles up to 70 pint casks. It is open 9am-5pm on weekdays and 10 – 2 on Saturday, and their beers can also be bought online at www.kingbeer.co.uk.