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FOOD REVIEW<br />
The Patch<br />
Pintxos? In <strong>Lewes</strong>?<br />
My best friend lived<br />
for many years in San<br />
Sebastian, in the Basque<br />
Country in Northern<br />
Spain. I became a<br />
regular visitor to that<br />
wonderful city, which<br />
is celebrated, among<br />
other things, for its fantastic<br />
food. One of the<br />
highlights of the trip<br />
was dining out in the<br />
old part of town, going<br />
from bar to bar trying<br />
out different pintxos.<br />
These are a kind of<br />
Basque tapas, where<br />
wildly different food combinations are stuck onto<br />
a slice of baguette with a cocktail stick.<br />
And now – on weekend evenings at least – <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
has a dedicated 'pintxos' bar. The Patch, which<br />
has opened up where Fillers used to be, on the<br />
corner of Market Street and School Hill, is a<br />
regular sandwich shop in the daytime, and sells<br />
a variety of craft ales at night. But, from 5.30 on<br />
Friday and Saturday, they will be serving these<br />
little Basque delicacies. "You'd better be quick<br />
though," says Patch, the guy who runs the place,<br />
(you might remember him from the Snowdrop).<br />
"We only make so many, and when they're gone,<br />
they're gone."<br />
We arrive at 5.30.<br />
Patch hasn't been able to perform miracles of the<br />
TARDIS variety to make the place bigger inside,<br />
so I'd suggest that it's not the sort of place for a<br />
football team to drop into after a game, but we<br />
find ourselves a little table by the window, just in<br />
time to witness the unveiling of tonight's pintxos,<br />
laid out on the bar surface – which they fill – on<br />
a black slate. We immediately<br />
fill a plate<br />
with one of each, and<br />
ask for a knife, so we<br />
can share them.<br />
For the record this is<br />
what we got. One had<br />
little pieces of steak<br />
in a gravy with a tiny<br />
dollop of mustard on<br />
top. Another had some<br />
Thai-spiced fish with<br />
diced pepper, onion<br />
and coriander. A third<br />
had a generous slice<br />
of goats cheese on<br />
top of some gherkins,<br />
with a roasted red pepper on top. And finally a<br />
bit of courgette on a bed of mayonnaise with<br />
some chopped up tomato and pomegranate<br />
seeds. They cost £1.50 a shot, which seems very<br />
reasonable.<br />
To wash these down I choose a large glass of Billingshurst<br />
English red wine, at £6, and Rowena<br />
goes for a pint of Vermont Pale APA from Gun<br />
Brewery... Patch specialises in keg ales, and you<br />
can expect him to try out a whole variety of these<br />
– another reason to pay a visit.<br />
Back to the pintxos: it's a mistake to try to cut<br />
them up, we realise: they are best enjoyed one<br />
to a person, so after a bit of a messy disaster<br />
first time round we chomp away happy in the<br />
decision that we're going to buy another plateful<br />
afterwards. Which we do, eliminating the courgette<br />
mixture, and going for two Thai fish ones.<br />
Verdict? A big thumbs up for another <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
first, and we'll certainly be back; I can't think of<br />
a better way to start off a weekend evening (aka<br />
line the stomach). Topa! Alex Leith<br />
Photo by Chloë King<br />
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