Limetree Kitchen, restaurant review: Unadorned surrounds belie gastronomic riches

One sunny day in 1797, Samuel Taylor Coleridge had burnt his foot with scalding milk and couldn't join his weekend guests on a hike to view the ocean. So he sat under a tree and wrote a poem while waiting for them to return. It began: "Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,/ This lime-tree bower my prison!" He concluded, 70 lines later, that it was a pretty fine prison, being a visitation of the Almighty Spirit embodied in Nature. I wouldn't make quite such visionary claims about this Limetree bower in Lewes, but it's also a fine discovery, with a genuine Romantic hero at its heart.

Lewes is known for several things – Lewes Castle, the Glyndebourne opera festival, the wild Guy Fawkes Night flaming-torch processions through its streets in November – but it's not well known as a foodie paradise. And the Limetree Kitchen is pretty shy about announcing its presence. You could walk past its modest, wood-sectioned glass frontage and ragged window-boxes and take it for a neglected antiques shop or haberdashery store. It used to be a tea room called the Garden Room, run by a lady called Cynthia Parrott, and it is wholly unmodernised. It even has an outside privy, reached by a freezing walk.

The decor is minimalist, with acid-stripped wooden tables and whitewashed chairs. One wall is covered by a blackboard, another by randomly arrayed sheet music. Quakerish lighting is provided by simple chandeliers and tealights in jam jars. Visiting elders from the Amish community might consider it a bit on the plain side. The menu is also pretty stark, offering three starters, four mains and three puddings. But once our sweet Zimbabwean waitress, Holly, appeared, the evening became more richly textured.

From the cocktail list, we tried vodka mootinis, made with Black Cow milk-derived vodka with vanilla vermouth and a nice citric kiss of orange peel; and an Ong Bar, a sexily bracing concoction of rum, pineapple juice, Thai syrup de gomme and lemongrass with a hint of coconut. Gorgeous.

A liquid amuse-bouche of kombu dashi, AKA Japanese kelp broth, in which floated spring onion slices with coriander and carrot, was smoothly flavourful, the best way of serving kelp I've found thus far. To celebrate Burns Night, a carapace of haggis offered a new iteration of the modern scotch-egg explosion; as pig offal goes, it was fabulously light, the egg pleasured by both a zingy curl of pickled parsnip and a white sauce of oats and whisky, daringly sweetened with honey.

Lightly "crusted" (rather than battered or tempura'd) calamari came blackened with squid ink and tasted fine with a chilli and coriander sauce – but the ink added little flavour and looked off-puttingly dirty. A green pillow of soused samphire was piquant – and moules marinières, shipped from the Isle of Lewis to its Sussex near-namesake, were small but wonderfully tender and fresh, poking out from a luxurious soup made of fried shallots, thyme, bay and double cream.

The restaurant prides itself on its steaks from Holmansbridge Farm, hung for 28 days and served with fries or Dauphinoise potatoes. My friend Nimmie loved her rib-eye monster, served on a wooden board in two rare, overlapping tranches, with aioli sauce and a rocket salad lightly snowed with parmesan. My loin chop (from Plantations Pig) was a major event, a chop the size of a Lewes Castle battlement, with bacon and sage dumplings (an odd accompaniment) and wholegrain mustard sauce (a perfect one.)

Angie's salt-baked celeriac and apple risotto, with pea shoots and Roquefort dressing, balanced all the flavours nicely, but had texture issues: the lumps of celeriac and apple were too intrusive. "It's a savoury dish that's almost a pudding," she said. Michael's roast chicken breast, surmounted by a pancetta crisp, was full of gutsy, umami attack, but he was more bowled over by the underlying cassoulet. "It's an inspired idea to smoke the haricot beans," he said.

Over an excellent Bailey's crème brûlée (another bright idea) and two trios of sorbets and ice creams, we met the chef-owner. He's Alex Von Riebech, 33, a ridiculously handsome, floppily long-haired and charming surfer dude of Indian extraction. Raised in Thornton Heath, south London, he cooked from the age of four, inspired by his grandma, and dropped out of his philosophy degree at the University of Birmingham to work in pubs and restaurants around Brighton.

He's been the heart and soul of the Limetree for four years, the brains behind all its dramatic and elegant dishes, and is destined for greatness. As is his shy, modest restaurant – at least until Alex is (as I confidently predict) snapped up by television in about a year or two as its newest gastro-star.

Food ***
Ambience **
Service ****

Limetree Kitchen, 14 Station Street, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 2DA, 01273 478636. £35 a head (£30 for vegetarians) for five courses, before drinks or service