Hastings area pub gets high praise from Guardian food critic Grace Dent

Miss Dent, who has been a judge on BBC's Masterchef, visited the Cove, in Waites Lane, which re-opened in April with a complete new look after being closed for many years.

There was high praise for the roast which had ‘some of the best roast potatoes I have ever eaten’.

It was a welcome turn of events for residents of the village, who finally got a pub back.

Miss Dent wrote: "I love a thoughtful pub renovation. No-one thanks landlords and breweries for creating sterile spaces that play endless Sky Sports.”

She praised Olivia Loveridge and Henry David who took it on in the spring and ‘gave it a new life’.

The Cove's menu was ‘small and ever-changing’, she said, with ingredients with local provenance that she found ‘quite irresistible'.

She said The Cove served ‘grown up and clever food but does not alienate family groups.’

She wrote: "The roast that day was a large portion of moist, rolled porchetta with an earthy, herby, stuffing. It was served with fluffy Yorkshire puddings, roast carrots and some of the best roast potatoes I have ever eaten, that came with a gorgeous fresh green dipping salsa. It was a mountain of food and of fabulous quality, especially seeing as we ate at nearly 4pm, when most pubs are usually beginning to struggle.”

She said her desert was ‘a thing of simple beauty - a bowl of dark chocolate ganache with hazelnut praline on a puddle of creme fraiche - airy, moreish, wickedly rich’.

She added: "The Cove is trying to make the locals happy, It doesn't need to make waves nationally, but somehow I think it will."

The review was well received by local people who said that it would put the village on the map.

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