Lury, Hastings: restaurant review

On May 10, 2025 by The Plate Licked Clean

Well, Lury is lovely.

I suppose I’ve ruined it now, haven’t I? That’s not how these things are supposed to work. You’re supposed to grit your teeth for a trudge through every bite of the ten courses and hope you still have the will to live when I arrive at a verdict, some stab at a summing-up. Well, you can have the meat of it now, because Lury was every bit as good as I wanted it to be and even better than I had hoped.

There’s something intriguingly unusual about long tasting menus in this town. Quirky, independent, cosy- think Winifred’s, Tonka, Ladle- Hastings does things its own way, as you might expect from a town with an annual Pirate Weekend and attracts thousands from all over Britain to its Jack In The Green May Day festival. Kitchen creativity flourishes here, good things happen in unpredictable places and the town’s tendency to punch above its weight has been a theme of this blog for over a year now. You’ll find more character and personality in restaurants here than in some towns several times the size: but the trappings of ‘fine dining’ haven’t really taken hold.

Jack Lury’s background is in Michelin-starred kitchens (Galvin at Windows, Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir) but he soon moved into private chef work, spending eight years in London before running a series of pop ups. Now, Jack and wife Issy have set up home in Hastings; and this new permanent site in the town centre puts his British and Burgher heritage very much to the fore.

As European settlers arrived in Sri Lanka and intermarried with the local population, the Burgher community grew. Their cooking combines those imported influences with local Sri Lankan ingredients. With an English father, and his mum a Sri Lankan-born Burgher with Portuguese and Dutch heritage, Jack’s cooking is a tribute to those traditions, to memories. As someone also brought up in a non-British food culture, that speaks to me on an emotional level. Those ideas are deep set, hardwired, part of who we are.

This is a tiny basement space with ten covers: pale shades, stretches of bare brickwork. There are subtle details from a local ‘artist in residence’ Rachel Karasik, from napkin rings to the interlinked ceramic links which frame the fireplace, and the welcome is warm and personable.

Snacks hint at a light hand in the kitchen. A tiny tartlet filled with delicate white crabmeat and sweetcorn; cuttlefish and peas on a squid ink cracker where the horseradish is deftly done, a hint, not strident. There’s precision here.

The menu is in that economical style which gives little away, though our server, Phoebe, is excited on our behalf. ‘What’s next is unbelievable,’ she smiles.

‘Pork, cardamom’ turns out to be a glossy, bronzed little bun of filled milk dough, pulling apart to reveal a thick tangle of curried pork cheek just begging for a slather of that cardamom and truffle butter, it is an instantly lovely thing, a few bites which tell you you’re exactly where you should be today.

It’s a clear nod to the familiar Sri Lnkan ‘short eat’ mas paan (‘meat bread’) but as the menu unfolds it becomes clear the idea here is not elevation but inspiration. Don’t come here expecting a familiar succession of Sri Lankan staples- there will be no hoppers, no kottu roti, no lamprais; rather, Lury’s heart is in taking flavours and memories as a starting point for creativity.

‘Incredible, isn’t it?’, laughs Phoebe, seeing our reaction.

‘Egg, seeni sambol, lime’ is a compelling combination, a dish which reveals itself as you go. That egg cooked has been cooked in a water bath to the lightest set, Japanese onsen-like, but rather than topping rice or udon noodles it sits on nutty, tartly flavoured oyster mushrooms- restaurants around here must thank whichever stars aligned to bring them Basil’s Fungi Farm– which have been fried in a curry powder butter. Below the mushrooms, toasted hazelnuts: and underpinning it all is the seeni sambol caramelised onion chutney which is sweet and aromatic.

The lime foam which tops it all off is assertively sour: but as the yolk breaks, the richness becomes a balm to massage those tart notes. This is intriguing and ingenious cooking, a dish which keeps you guessing as you eat.

The next plays with contrasts. Silky little potato and turmeric gnocchi, onion three ways (pickled, a curry-spiced purée, crispy shallots), pickled mustard seeds and a vividly shaded chive oil. It’s based on a dry potato curry Jack’s mum used to make: this is his European take on those memories, a bowl of quiet pleasures with little pops of flavour and texture throughout.

Then, a change of gear: lightly pickled mussels with a spiced lentil tuile. It’s like eating crisp slices of dhal, dotted with curry leaf mayonnaise, and who could possibly argue with that? The snap of samphire and asparagus, with blood orange bringing welcome little twists of sharpness. It all makes for a lightly bracing bridge into the richer courses.

‘Wait until the next one’, smiles Phoebe, whose pride in serving these dishes is palpable. I’m surprised to learn this is her first job in hospitality: she’s a natural.

Scallop- a plump, hand-dived scallop, sweet and delicate: not teased and tweezed, just deftly seared and served whole, comes with a little daub of intense cauliflower purée and a muscular bisque.

The sauce is a Lury favourite, apparently, with a looser version making an appearance on earlier menus, dressing squid ink linguine or fried veal sweetbreads. It’s not hard to see why. It’s a thing of robust intensity, with the sort of rugged depth you get from roasted crab shells to form the base of a curry sauce with spices, coconut milk and the brown meat. There’s more, though.

The acidity in the bisque comes from pickled lime: it’s punchily sour. Mischievously, it isn’t mentioned on the menu, but it is all the more welcome for being unexpected. This one’s born out of Jack’s memories of childhood, of crab curries served by his mother, of hands busy across the family table: for us, it is ‘just’ a few minutes of sheer pleasure.

Venison is impeccably done, roasted to a furious blush. Warming spices lend heft to a sticky aubergine jam, beetroot purée has its earthiness dialled right up, and chilli and garlic and rhubarb all bringing something more assertive.

A filled choux bun: a bonus moment of comic relief to make B’s day.
‘What type of nut is this?’ I ask her.
‘Cashew…’
‘Bless you!’
…which is blue chip dad joke material and nothing will convince me otherwise. You’re thinking she’s a lucky woman, and of course you’d be right. The dessert is a technically impressive thing: a delicate shell, a luscious cashew praline interior. Topped with a crystallised nut, it’s just a sprinkle of sea salt short of brilliant.

There are no such quibbles with what comes next. Toasted coffee marshmallow with a white chocolate mousse, and it’s that marshmallow which steals the show. It sidesteps the trap of over-sweetness, with coffee bitterness and smoke cutting through, and a touch of rhubarb tartness to round off an impressive finale.

In less skilled hands, the smokiness could be overpowering: ‘This is the best bonfire marshmallow I’ve ever tasted,’ says B, who is talking to me again after my cashew joke. There are some final treats- fudge made from arrack, a fermented sap of coconut flowers, some sweet-sour passion fruit pastilles- and we are done.

There are rumblings of Lury as a destination restaurant. Today, some friends on the next table, one a food writer, have come up from London for lunch. There’s a larger group, a restaurant management team from Brighton, taking up the rest of the tables. In the first weeks since opening, word has already spread.

We emerge, smiling and a little smitten, into the sunshine, and with Bat and Bee just yards away it seems the perfect idea to round it all off with one of their superb black cherry Negronis. This is confident, stylish cooking of real poise and refinement: and ten courses will cost you just £65.

Clever, assured, satisfying, intriguing: all of these would fit. Meticulous, too. In Lury, Hastings has something special to call its own. It is May as I write this, and lunch at Lury is my meal of the year to date.

Lury Restaurant, 8 Cambridge Road, Hastings, TN34 1DJ

07459 571035

https://www.luryrestaurant.com/reservations

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