All things Brighton beautiful

During the swinging sixties the only battles on Brighton's streets were between armies of mods and rockers. Now the town is facing a new battle - for customers - as the number of restaurants operating there reaches more than 400.

This has given the seaside town (population 250,000) the prestige of having the most eateries per head in Britain outside London. More importantly, Brighton has become the most profitable place to do business in the UK. A report from business information company Dun & Bradstreet singles out the seaside resort from 162 British towns and resorts as having the highest concentration of successful companies.

Easy communication links with London - trains take about 50 minutes - Continental Europe and nearby Gatwick airport are prime factors pushing Brighton to the top of the list; as is the fact that it's more than just a seaside town: it is a major conference destination; and large corporations have located themselves in the town - American Express, for example, has its European headquarters there. All of which takes it out of the seasonal bracket.

But Brighton is not without its problems. Yes, its restaurant scene is thriving, but this in itself is creating difficulties. The increase in visitors means an increase in cars, which is threatening to clog up the town's streets.

This is not a major concern for the owners of Brighton's latest restaurant, an outlet of the London-based sushi chain, Moshi Moshi, which opens for business on 5 September. However, what is worrying Nicholas Röhl, who runs the company with his business partner Caroline Bennett, is whether the town is ready for sushi.

Rîhl and Bennett were attracted to Brighton by its prosperous restaurant scene and because they were both born in the town. The soon-to-be-four-strong group has dropped the "sushi" from its name, and about 40% of the menu in the 120-seat Brighton restaurant will focus on hot Japanese dishes compared with the 35% offered in the three City of London branches.

"Obviously, we have concerns," says Röhl. "Although sushi has started to trickle into people's eating habits, it hasn't really started to take off outside London." However, Röhl thinks he has made the right move in investing £280,000 in the restaurant. And he isn't put off by the fact that his estimated first-year turnover for the Brighton eaterie is £750,000, almost £500,000 less than its sister restaurant in Liverpool Street, London.

But here lies one of Brighton's problems: it may be known fondly as "London's beach" and be likened to the capital in many ways, but Brighton isn't London. Brighton might be expanding and it might have a tolerant, open-minded population (its gay scene is one of the biggest in Britain), but it is still a small town with a large student population - a fact that concerns Behnam Samandi, owner of the 200-seat Havana restaurant.

Five years ago Samandi invested £1m in transforming a former theatre into the two-storey, colonial-style eaterie on the town's Duke Street, which also boasts Wok Wok and Browns restaurants. A love of Brighton, where he has lived for 20 years, led Samandi to open his "unique, modern British with a twist of European" restaurant in the town, but he still wonders whether it was the right thing to do. "It's a shame, in essence, that [Havana is] happening down here. I would love to move to London, but it's so expensive," says Samandi, who believes his £1.5m Brighton turnover would be worth £6m in London.

Samandi says it took a long time for his restaurant to be appreciated. "It really took five years. A lot of people in Brighton don't like spending money [average customer spend at Havana is £40], and because we have London so close it's easy for them to go out there."

Paul Gunn, head chef of the two-AA-rosette Whytes restaurant, where average spend is £25 per head without drink, believes Brighton is "full of popular catering with people who don't want to spend a lot of money". He continues: "Brighton is very much old-school. It's not London, but we have a lot of nouveau riche here. The town is perceived as trendy in certain areas but it lacks consistency." Gunn believes there's a huge gulf between quality restaurants and the rest of the eateries.

Nevertheless, says Amanda Shepherd, Brighton's head of tourism, conferences and city marketing, the town needs both the brands and the independent restaurants. "I have to dispute the fact that there is seen to be a big gulf between them. There are some excellent restaurants here. But what we don't want to happen is for the town to be taken over by big brands," she says.

No matter what types of restaurant are in the town, it is obvious Shepherd is proud of the status Brighton has achieved. Sitting in her office overlooking the English Channel, she says a lot of the growth of the town can be attributed not only to people's changing attitudes towards eating out but to initiatives taken by the council.

"The council changed its attitude about tables and chairs outside with regard to licences. It also invested in developing a café-bar-restaurant culture along the seafront, which was shabby and run-down, while pedestrianising most of the North Lane [a fashionable shopping area]," says Shepherd.

But the booming economy has also attracted several undesirable elements, including vagrants, a drugs problem - according to Shepherd, this is a difficulty experienced by many towns and cities - and too many cars. As Tony Mernagh, town centre manager for the Brighton Business Forum, bluntly puts it: "We want the visitors, but we don't want their cars."

The parking problem has put a strain on all areas of Brighton life, including the restaurant sector. Says Mernagh: "Nobody would say it's easy accessing Brighton. We have few mass-transport options, and no park-and-ride." He gives a word of warning: "Brighton's future hinges on getting the park-and-ride [a controversial draft application for 1,000 spaces to be built near the South Downs will be looked at in November]. Because if we don't get visitors into the restaurant sector, there won't be any restaurants. It is now a top priority."

But the growth in Brighton's restaurant scene shows no sign of slowing down. "The latest report says there's provision for 14,000sq m of retail space, which includes restaurants," says Mernagh, continuing: "That's up to 2006. But, in fact, the rate of development in the town has meant we are already racing towards that figure."

One of the new eateries is set to be a 40-seat restaurant called C, which opens at the end of September in the Blanch House hotel. It has good credentials, being a joint venture between Cass Titcombe, former head chef at the Collection in South Kensington, London, and Anthea McNeill, previously manager of Stephen Bull and the Atlantic Bar & Grill.

With Brighton now aiming for city status, and its A3-use premises being compared by Mernagh to gold dust, it is unlikely that Moshi Moshi and C will be the last to seek a foothold in Brighton.

FACTS

Brighton

Web site: www.visitbrighton.com

Population: 250,000 (Brighton and Hove)

Visitors: eight million in 1999

Visitor spend: £380m in 1999

Restaurants: about 450

Staff employed in hospitality industry: 13,000

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 31 August - 6 September 2000