Coquina, Hastings Contemporary: restaurant review

It is a beautiful evening for a walk down to dinner. Coquina (styled with a small ‘c’) is easy to spot from the top of Hastings’ West Hill, near the foot of the East, and next to the darkly looming Net Shops on Rock-a-Nore Road.

The bright, welcoming space they have taken upstairs in art gallery Hastings Contemporary ticks off the first and third parts of their manifesto, the ones about working with the pick of producers and local businesses who share their ambition ‘to put Hastings and St Leonards on the map for art, food and culture’.

The second? Well, coquina comes from Ruby Boglione and Silvy Pilkington, the team behind Bayte, less than two miles away in St Leonards, which The Good Food Guide recommends for the way its ‘seasonal menu blends influences from across the globe, with a particular love for Italy’.

First impressions are striking. When the light hits just so, this space will be hard to beat locally: the bar is picked out in a deep red, and the views don’t exactly hurt, either.

This is the fishier end of town- appropriately perhaps for a restaurant named after a clam- and local legend smokehouse Sonny’s is opposite. With dayboats outside, it’s here at Rock-a-Nore- or half an hour up the coast at Rye Harbour- that coquina’s fish is landed. Haye Farm, one of their extended family of businesses, supplies meat, as does Beak and Tail, fast becoming a Hastings restaurant badge of honour.

The menu is explicit about its commitment to sustainable sourcing. It isn’t hard to connect the dots: The Standard called owner Ruby Bolgione a ‘vegetable evangelist’, and when you recall her previous with Petersham Nurseries Cafe and its Michelin Green Star for sustainability (‘It feels as though all is right with the world’), expectations of coquina are high.

There’s a strong Mediterranean feel to coquina, with a strong Spanish influence evident in their Thursday tapas nights. Chef Wil Hopson, formerly of Soho’s Kricket, recently led another Michelin Green Star kitchen- Tillingham in nearby Peasmarsh- but perhaps it’s the time he spent at Sam and Sam Clark’s renowned Moro which is the most obvious reference point here, drawing inspiration from across the continent as well as the African stretch of the coastline.

Asparagus season has arrived so here are fat, locally-grown spears- six of them- faultlessly cooked and awash with a nutty brown butter crumb. The killer detail is the sly, salty punch of cured anchovies. It’s just a few things on a plate combining very happily, which seems to be the watchword here, and it’s undeniably effective.

There’s a bold stock underpinning the cuttlefish rice. Slivers of raw apple and fennel bring welcome contrast and texture, because this is in that Spanish arroz meloso style- slightly soupy, yet with a well-judged bite. It is unabashed flavour, comfort eating at its best.

A coarse-grained bavette, or flank, steak is an exercise in treating good meat well. An impeccably rosy middle, a subtly rich peppercorn sauce, the earthy bite of spinach, all lavished with a frankly improbable amount of butter. They are not shy with the stuff here, happily, and it makes this a gutsy pleasure.

It’s the labneh which swings it. The strained yoghurt is having a moment locally- no, that isn’t a sentence I ever thought I’d write, thanks for asking- whether it’s Tonka’s toasted flatbreads dressed with miso or green chilli honeys, or with heritage carrots at Albo.

Here, it’s something compelling, that thick swirl anchored by the slow-cooked sweetness of shallots, brightened with herbs and bitter leaves, and given even more interest with a little chilli heat among the rubble of spiced hazelnut dukkah. It is an instantly lovely thing, a happy riot of textures and flavours, immediately satisfying and wholesome. It’s no surprise to learn it’s an ever-present here, in some form, though the trappings will change with the weeks, I’m sure.

There’s a cheeky Spanish-accented nod to seafront chips in a town where there is plenty of competition and ‘Where’s best?’ discussions rage like the Hundred Years War. Two hefty dollops- an uncompromisingly smoky bravas sauce, heavy on the pimentón, and a pungent alioli- are places to top chips which stay hot and crisp rather than being soaked into limp surrender. It’s a small detail, perhaps, but it counts.

We finish with an intensely dark and rich chocolate cremeux with pistachio, which in less talented hands it would be cloyingly, impossibly rich: but here, segments of tart orange lift a broadside of sugar, eggs and cream into something oddly refreshing.

‘Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’ is a sentiment attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, and coquina understands that. Here, good things are on your plate for a good reason, and it is all done  style rather than unnecessary flounce and fuss for ‘Instagrammabiliity’ alone, or cheffy ego. Our bill includes a £1 supplement for a local charity, a nice touch in a place which gets so much so right, and is another welcome opening for the area from people who understand the local market better than most.

And yet: context is all, and you can’t help but feel the icy winds blowing through British hospitality. Even as I write this Old Town’s lovely Ladle has just announced its closure, citing among other pressures a sixfold surge in fuel costs over the last couple of years. Others will undoubtedly follow. Talk to operators right now and you’ll find a mixture of the desperate and despondent, with some defiance thrown in. You have to admire the sheer bloody-mindedness of anyone who risks opening a restaurant now: but whatever the peculiar and infernal challenges of running a hospitality business in 2025, coquina is one of those places which reminds us why we go out to eat in the first place.

BRUNCH
Sun 11-3

LUNCH
Weds – Sat: 11-5pm

DINNER
Thurs 6 – 10.30
Fri – Sat: 6 – 11

Hastings Contemporary
Rock-a-Nore Road
Hastings TN34 3DW

hello@coquinarestaurant.co.uk
01424 728379