Sustainability, seasonality, locality have all become rhetorical armoury for the 21st century chef.

Some of these phrases are scratched out on menus with more conviction than others, and it's easy to see how they can absent-mindedly roll off the tongue.

What the sentiment really boils down to is an attempt to reconnect produce to the plate, to illuminate the sometimes murky supply chain and find more of a soulful connection with what we eat.

One way to cut out the middle men is to become part of the supply chain, something the couple behind Edendum seem to have done.

Before setting their sights on opening a restaurant-cafe in Brighton, Diego Cacciolatti and Lorenza Canepa established a company trading high-end food from the Northwest regions of Italy.

The trading connections of these modern day merchants gave the couple a head start when it come to eventually opening in East Street in August last year.

Most of their food is sourced from Piedmont, and such was their dedication to quality they reportedly rejected 15 mozzarellas before settling on one they felt was the real deal.

There are no freezers on site, with all ingredients fresh, either regularly delivered from Italy or in the case of bread, pastries and pasta made downstairs.

All this is to say, they’re pretty serious about good food. And in a city brimming with popular pizza and pasta places ranging from the good to the not so good, there is certainly space for heartfelt regional fare that feels both strangely familiar and yet newfangled over here.

First of all a bit of hyperbole about the gnocco fritto. On the menu it’s described as deep fried pizza dough strips, but I wonder if that really does these pillowy morsels justice.

Like salty-savoury doughnuts, this is next level bread I am acutely disappointed to have only just discovered at this stage in life.

Served as a sharing platter bulging with goodies - crimson Sicilian sun-soaked tomatoes, vivid green giant Cerignola olives, glistening streaks of Parma ham and that special mozzarella.

Is it the best The Gourmand has tasted? Possibly. It’s got to be the best mozzarella in Brighton though. Richer than many current examples of fashionable burrata, which actually has cream added to it, this tastes as fresh and tangy as if straight from the buffalo's udder.

The restaurant does not pigeon-hole itself as a pasta restaurant, though there is one dish on the menu when we visit, cacio e pepe. Translating as cheese and pepper, its stunning simplicity is a salutary lesson in not overcomplicating things in the kitchen. The bucatini is made onsite and has a real girth to get into, slathered generously in a rich sauce of pecorino and black pepper. There’s nowhere to hide here and it's an absolute delight to eat.

We try the capounet, which is ricotta and spinach wrapped in savoy cabbage, with a tomato sauce and slabs of deep-fried polenta.

Ricotta and spinach is a much abused combination but here it was perfect, both elements in an ambient embrace, the soft hum of nutmeg in the background.

One of the more familiar dishes was frittura di paranza con insalata mista, a lightly battered medley of squid, octopus, sea bass and prawns.

By its nature it's rustic, best eaten from a basket on a red check tablecloth, al fresco, on the dock of an Italian fishing village.

Edendum bring some customary class to the classic, with a light tempura like batter, each creature louchely laying over the next.

The sea bass was so fresh and delicious it was good enough to eat on its own.

You should get the picture that these guys not their stuff, and the same high standards went for the wine, with a mouth watering array of lesser stocked types - strozzavolpe grechetto, grillo, falanghina, sangiovese, montecucco, vignaraja, most with designated origin labels.

The whites start off light and sprightly, and become progressively moodier and more complex down the list.

The grillo erice aegades fazio DOC from Sicily is like sun toasted straw. Even better is the floral and exotic pecorino superiore duca thaulero DOP from Abruzzo.

Both are just north of £20 a bottle and also served by the glass, which seems like criminally good value for such premium plonk.

Word has not wholly filtered through about this welcome addition. Its hard to imagine enthusiastic eaters could walk out with anything other then a well-fed swaying satisfaction.