With its open kitchen and small plate servings, 64 Degrees is designed to be a very different dining experience – just don’t mention tapas.

“People always start talking about Spanish food,” grimaces head chef and owner Michael Bremner, who opened the restaurant with his partner Carla Grassy in The Lanes’ former Tick Tock Cafe last month.

“This is social dining, where you can sit and interact with the people making your food.

“I’ve been thinking about this place for a long time. Initially, the idea was not to have any front of house staff at all – we wanted it to just be the chefs – but we realised we needed them for busy times.

“Very few chefs get a chance to see their customers. I thought it would be exciting to get a group of guys who love what they do, making food you don’t get anywhere else in Brighton.”

The menu changes daily but is always based around four meat, four fish and four vegetable dishes – drawing on Bremner’s 20 years of experience in the kitchen, including time as head chef at Brighton favourites Due South and vegetarian restaurant Food For Friends.

There are no starters or main courses, with diners encouraged to sample and share two or three dishes each, which have recently included pig cheek fritters with woodland tartar; scallop, samphire, king oyster and seaweed; salmon pastrami with pickles and sour dough; and roast cauliflower, shallot bhaji, pomegranate and almond.

The prices range from £4.50 to £12 according to the size of the dish – with a lunchtime express menu of two courses for £10 or three for £13.

“Food has moved on massively in the last five years,” says Bremner, who opened the 24-cover restaurant at the beginning of October after five weeks of refurbishment to create the open kitchen and casual bar seating.

“We’ve had the whole molecular gastronomy, with food produced at a different level.

“We want to research food combinations and get quite creative. We want to be different, but accessible – and not pretentious!

“All chefs want to find a new flavour. Even though you can’t reinvent the wheel, you can be quite innovative. There are so many techniques and old- fashioned things that have been forgotten about.”

Among the amazing range of modern kitchen equipment is a water bath allowing food to be cooked at exact temperatures.

“We did a Jacob’s Ladder [beef short rib], which is an old-fashioned cut of meat,” says Bremner.

“We got the cut from Westdene Butchers, marinated it in treacle for 24 hours, and then put it in the water bath at 60 degrees for 48 hours.

“By cooking it at that exact temperature we were able to break down all the fats, but not break down the structure of the meat, so you can still carve it.”

Innovative ideas

Already a favourite on the menu is the almost indescribably gorgeous Marmite brownie – a combination of savoury taste and sweet brownie texture, served with peanut butter and caramelised white chocolate sauce.

The new ideas are coming all the time – with the chefs recently experimenting with combinations of mackerel and coconut to interesting results, and salmon pastrami with rhubarb and vanilla panacotta.

“Who would have known it worked?” laughs Bremner, whose hand-picked kitchen team includes fellow Due Souther Sam Lambert, Josh Kitson, formerly of The Forager in Hove, and newcomer to the city Matt Hudson. In charge of front of house is manager Kate Confrey.

The plan is to eventually open seven days a week, once the restaurant receives its full alcohol licence, with customers encouraged to turn up on the day rather than make bookings.

“We have a good relationship with Bohemia next door,” says Bremner, adding that if the restaurant is busy people will be able to go there and wait for a table to open up.

The deliberately short wine list has been picked by the chef team. And there are plans to introduce a wide range of gins based around new brand Anno, described by Bremner as “the Breaking Bad of gins” having been created by a team of former pharmacists.

In the future, 64 Degrees hopes to offer cooking classes and pop-up events – including a projected 12 Days of Christmas menu for the upcoming season.

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