Brighton is a city that’s quickly become known for its exciting and dynamic restaurant scene. This is thanks to restaurants like The Set which, since opening in 2015, became a hit thanks to its fun, produce-driven and flavour-packed cooking.

Although The Set was originally situated within the Artists Residence Hotel, in 2021 it found a new home within Café Rust, where it has taken over an intimate dining room and kitchen just off the main café. As the name of the venue suggests, décor has been kept very rustic leading to a wonderfully relaxed ambience. There’s space for just eighteen diners each evening who are all served at the same time over the course of around three hours, to create more of a supper-club-like experience.

Wanting to serve a style of food that hadn’t previously been seen in Brighton, chef-owner Dan Kenny has developed a tasting menu of small plates which tends to sit around the fifteen-course mark. Driven by seeking out the best produce possible, he and his sous chef Marcin (the only two chefs in the kitchen) serve up dishes influenced both by the flavours Kenny experienced when living in Asia and the food they themselves love to eat. This leads to a menu full of everything from fun bites such as cheese cones inspired by the chef’s favourite cinema nachos and a brioche bread and butter pudding with Tunworth and walnut ketchup, to char siu monkfish and beer and soy-glazed pork belly.

Guests at The Set can also opt to pair the tasting menu with a carefully thought-out alcoholic drinks flight which stretches beyond the bounds of wine, while an array of soft drinks are available for non-drinkers.

At just eighty-five pounds for the full tasting menu, The Set offers incredible value for the quality and skill of cooking on offer, but it's the playfulness of Kenny’s flavour-led food that makes it a real gem. If this intimate restaurant is anything to go by, Brighton’s food scene is most certainly in good hands.