3 Souls in a Bowl, The Source, Hastings: review

Somehow, it seems a very Hastings thing to answer the question, ‘What shall we do with that disused subterranean Victorian swimming bath complex on the seafront?’ with ‘Why, turn it into the world’s biggest underground skatepark, of course! And while you’re at it, why don’t we have a bunch of places to eat and drink on the way in?’

I’m fascinated by the little spaces clustered around the cavernous Source in White Rock. You could happily spend a day of leisurely grazing here. Burgers from Masterchef champion Kenny Tutt’s Patty Guy, seasonal regional English cooking from Ben Cumberpatch at Winifred’s, pints at Brewing Brothers’ tap room (and their tempting fresh pasta menu, too), then back to Ben’s for some deceptively potent Vesper martinis and Negronis.

This time, it could only be 3 Souls in a Bowl. Recently, the new Kismet residency collaboration with Kim of Tonka was all sorts of impressive- I’ll tell you more about that soon- and Raj is clearly a bit of a local cult favourite after popping up all over town, so this visit is long overdue.

What follows is a love affair with spice. Over a succession of dishes fizzing with vibrant bright punchy colours and flavours, in portion sizes decided by someone who wants to feed you.

Crisp little pappads (£5) come with a few dips, the pick of which is a spikily hot, fruity hot Scotch bonnet mixture. Sturdy wild Atlantic prawns (£12), stippled with black onion seeds, are served with the heads intact so you can fall in them and suck them clean of those juices, and awash with a sauce just begging to be mopped up, full of the heat and sharpness of lime and red chilli.

A supple naan, pooled with spiced garlic butter, is just the thing for that. It’s impressive stuff, an introduction which smacks you around the chops here.

Bunny chow (£17) is served today with steamed basmati rice, rather than inside the usual bread roll. It is fantastic. An Indian South African classic, the dark, densely flavoured mutton curry is slow-cooked into something tangy and hearty and the sort of thing I’d like to fall face first into after a long day, thank you very much. Generous doesn’t really do the portion justice, not at all- the leftovers make an excellent dinner the next day. I sigh happily. This is superlative comfort eating.

How I resist the laksa I don’t know- blame the padrón peppers from the barbecue at Goat Ledge, or the beach oysters and bubbles from The Selkie on our walk down, perhaps- but I’m intrigued by the fish and chips.

Today it’s cod (£15), with spankingly fresh flesh in a crisp chickpea flour batter loaded with good things: there’s garlic, ginger and some subtle sourness thanks to green mango powder, and spiced fries, kachumber salad and with a cooling mint raita. In a town where ‘the best fish and chips’ can be more hotly debated than the national political issues of the day, it takes a playful mindset to take the ultimate British dish and turn it thousands of miles east.

A core memory: being around the kitchens in the family restaurant and watching his uncle cook a lamb chop stew, something between a traditional English stew and a curry, with ginger, garlic and spices running through it. He swears he can still taste it today: and with it came an early understanding- without fully realising it at the time- of just how powerful food and flavour can be. Its ability to stay with you. Years in the kitchen with mum. Asking, watching. The smell of home: onions slowly browning, ginger, garlic, garam masala, cumin, chillies and mustard oil.

Later, we talk about his inspirations. Raj got one of those rare educations you only get as part of a hospitality family. Dad, who had been in the restaurant trade since he was sixteen, moved the family from Highgate to Sussex, where they spent around a quarter of a century running their restaurant in Hastings, and later their catering company.

3 Souls seems alive with that fascination with spicing. Not just the mustard oil, coconut, lentils, vegetables and panch phoron (Bengali five-spice) of his family’s Tripura north-east Indian home, or India’s vast palette and its prodigiously diverse regional variations in technique, ingredient and flavour; but the way those spices have written their own stories in other cultures- South Africa, the Caribbean, Malaysia, Thailand- and how they met local ingredients, techniques and cultures, becoming something new in their own right. Or: how people cook, and why they make the choices they do.

This is food in high definition, bold and instantly striking and fizzing with personality. Food which tells a story. And it shows. My god, it shows.

3 Souls In A Bowl @ The Courtyard (Sourcepark, The Courtyard, White Rock, Hastings TN34 1JA

Thursday 5:30–9 pm
Friday 12:30–10 pm
Saturday 12:30–10 pm
Sunday 12:30–6 pm

3 Souls in a Bowl Instagram