Negotiating the holiday resort restaurant strip is fraught with adversity and grave lapses in judgement.

Everyone knows the busiest most prominent spots are not likely to serve the finest food.

But as strangers in a foreign town we abandon common sense and are quickly reduced to incomprehensible idiots, desperately clutching our stomachs and lurching into the first dodgy pizza place in sight.

Guides and recommendations reward those willing to venture down the back valleys.

But a combination of fatigue and needing to refuel three times a day make unplanned stop-offs an inevitability.

Brighton’s seafront strip is no different.

The likes of Riddle and Finns on the Beach, The Salt Room, The New Club and The Regency make admirable exceptions in bringing a bit of quality to the seaside.

But they stand against a tide of mediocrity, where horrors against the tradition of fish and chips are doled out to naïve visitors determined to tick it off their Brighton bucket list alongside a stick of rock and selfie on the pier.

Another worthy example, incongruously sandwiched between nightclubs Coalition and Shoosh, is Lucky Beach Café.

It’s in the type of prime spot that gets a tsunamis-worth of passing trade, and so while the food and drink are excellent, they are also pretty accessible to the casual passer-by.

Lucky Beach’s quality is no happy accident, and is run by seasoned restaurant guru Mike Palmer, the founder of consultancy Lost In Catering who honed an eye for foodie trends with big-name national chains and independents.

Also the owner of Red Roaster Coffee in St James Street (giving Lucky Beach a steady supply of recently roasted beans) Palmer always wanted to open a place on the beach, which he did in 2013.

Its core thing is burgers and beer, which may have long passed their peak trend, but with Lucky Beach you can forgive it for being probably the best in town – with some possible competition from Troll’s Pantry.

The very reasonable burger selection goes from a straight-up Pulp Fiction reminiscent royale with cheese, to the left-field Sussex Longhorn with roasted fig jam and hazelnuts.

I have the signature Lucky Beach Burger, which is limited to 20 a day (not 20 per person, presumably), and is a 35 day dry-aged Sussex burger, with kombu (Japanese seaweed), lardo fried onions, and the rather ingenious 'ketchup leather'.

An uncalled for solution to a first world problem, ketchup leather stops that bane of 21st century life – the soggy brioche bun – by dehydrating the condiment. Fantastically unnecessary though it sounds, The Gourmand didn’t notice any difference, but nor did he get a soggy bun, so something must be working.

With some fancy-sounding ingredients thrown into the patty party, what it amounted to was a magnificent burger, a classic cocktail of succulent meat, sweet pickles and umami onions.

It’s not all burgers and being by the seaside there’s a welcome appearance of what looks like top notch, crispy battered fish and chips.

The crispy squid were a wonderful and welcome take on the omnipresent calamari, giving it an masala spiced crust, coriander dip, and only the smallest succulent squid bits, rather than the customary rubber rings.

For many Lucky Beach is a fine spot for a liquid lunch and there is crispy Estrella Damn on draught, as well as various local bottled brews from Dark Star and Firebird.

But for a sunny day by the beach, Audrey Hepburn shades and a spritz is where it’s at, with Lucozade coloured Italian mainstay Aperol spritz the popular choice, which can be revved up with a glug of Beefeater.

Keeping it classy and continental, there is also Prosecco, elderflower Bellini and sangria.

With a roaring trade at the weekend and queues for tables upstairs in the fisherman’s arch home, and out onto the covered terrace, the whole operation is incredibly well organised by a photogenic gang of staff.

If there’s any criticism, it feels a bit of a shame to stick to burgers when the quality hints at such great potential.

For those angling to satisfy those creative urges, Lucky Beach also hosts high-end pop-ups, including a head to head with Michelin Starred chef Matt Gillan and London bad boy Ben Spalding on April 1.

LUCKY BEACH CAFE

King’s Road Arches

Brighton

Food – Four stars

Restaurant/cafe – Four stars

Service – Four stars

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