Gourmet Girls Secret Restaurant.

Last weekend one of my favourite dining buddies & I headed out to eat at Brighton's first vegan underground supper club. The secret restaurant is the brainchild of the Gourmet Girls, Sammy & Paula, who also run local vegan catering company Titbits.

The Gourmet Girls announce the menu on facebook & their website & once you book they'll tell you the location. I loved the excitement of not knowing where we were going to be heading until 24 hours before dinner.

Upon arrival we were greeted by the lovely owner of the house we were dining in & we were quickly handed a delicious virgin Pimms welcome drink by the girls. As is often the case in Brighton, it is a very small city, it turned out that I already knew three of the other diners but we also sat with some lovely people we'd never met before. I really liked the communal dining experience & it was great fun to chat to other foodies over dinner.

It wasn't long before the starters were served & I was excited to try some of this years first in season asparagus prepared by professional chefs.

This delicious asparagus came wrapped in an almond filo pastry & was served with a lemon scented butter bean puree & rocket oil. Everything about this dish was melt in your mouth delicious, I don't think I've ever liked asparagus this much before!

Next up was the main of Smoked Garlic & Mushroom Arancini. The arancini came nestled upon a bed of wilted spinach & they were served with a pine nut truffle cream, watercress, pomegranate & rawmesan salad & steamed broccoli.

I actually didn't know what arancini were until they arrived but I was very pleased to discover that they're a fried risotto ball, only in this case I believe they were baked not fried. I love risotto & covering it in bread crumbs only seems to be a winning idea in my book! I'm also a huge lover of broccoli, spinach & watercress - it was like they'd designed this dish with my taste buds in mind! I was also very impressed with their rawmesan - a vegan parmesan. It was excellent, one of the best I've tried for sure.

Last up was a Divine Chocolate Marbled Cheesecake with a chocolate, maca & orange sauce.

If you're a regular reader of the blog you might know that I actually don't like cheesecake, at all, but the rest of the menu looked so great that I decided I'd give cheesecake another try just this once. I loved the biscuit base & the chocolate orange sauce & whilst I didn't love the cheesecake it was certainly the best I've ever tried. All of the other diners were ooohing & aaahing over how delicious it was so if you have a normal taste in desserts I'll bet you'd have loved this.

After the meal everyone was served teas & coffees alongside some delicious handmade heart shaped raspberry truffles. I did snap some pictures but sadly it had gotten quite dark by that point & my photos are too terrible to post here. I can assure you that they were perfect, a lovely end to the meal.

If you're a Brighton local or if you're ever in Brighton & you want to take part in this new dining phenomenon then I would highly recommend the Gourmet Girls Secret Restaurant. They've just announced the menu for the next dinner which will take place on June 24th so why don't you head over to their facebook site to check it out?

In other local news Brighton's first all vegan charity bake sale is taking place this Saturday, check out the details here.