Viva Brighton Issue #46 December 2016

FOOD REVIEW
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Northern Lights
Scandi-style salmon (and meatballs, of course)
“Anything else?”
asks the barman.
I’ve left my main
course halfway
through, to get
a second pint of
draught Swedish
pale ale, so I don’t
want to get drawn
into a conversation
whilst waiting at the bar. Meatballs on mash isn’t
half as appealing when it goes cold. Nevertheless,
there’s something I need to know.
“Can you ask your chef how they get their
vegetables to taste so amazing?” I say. I’ve never
experienced such tasty cabbage.
“Ask her,” says the guy, pointing me to a woman
leaning at the bar next to me. It’s the chef, taking a
break. She smiles...
I’m in Northern Lights, the Scandinavian bar/
restaurant, eating a late lunch with Lizzie Enfield.
If you haven’t been, it’s in a lovely old fisherman’s
cottage in Little East Street; it’s run by a group
of friends, one of whom is Finnish; and it’s where
Brighton-based Scandies go if they fancy a bit of
home away from home. It’s THE place to go to
watch the Ice Hockey World Championships, apparently.
And their meatballs are famous.
Lizzie, being a freelance journalist, is generally on
hand if I need a last-minute lunch companion, and
she’s great company. It’s late for lunch: the place
doesn’t open till 3pm on a Friday. Which is OK by
me, hunger being the best sauce, and all that. We’ve
been swapping stories about journalistic assignments
we’ve had in Nordic countries as we pick at
our shared first course: ‘Lime vodka and dill cured
salmon, horseradish
sauce, pickles
and rye bread’. She
nearly fell into the
sea while skating
near the edge of the
frozen bit of the
Baltic. I jumped naked
into an ice-hole
on a lake in Finland.
That sort of thing. The salmon, and the pickle, is
scrumptious.
I’ve had the meatballs here before, and they looked
very different from the ones which arrive about five
minutes after we finish the starter. Five of them
are piled high on a neat wheel of mashed potato,
in a moat of gravy, next to mounds of red cabbage,
red onion and carrots. They taste firm, and herby,
and much better than I remember. We swap taste
notes… and then I try the cabbage. And from now
on, unless I learn the chef’s secret, I’m always going
to be disappointed by cabbage.
A few minutes later, I’m at the bar, buying that second
pint, and I get my chance. The chef, who turns
out to be from Yorkshire (the first disappointment
of the afternoon; I wanted her to be Icelandic, or
something) tells me: “I don’t boil them, I put them
in the oven.”
Is that it? Is it that simple? I shovel up the second
half of my meal, wondering if she’s keeping some
sort of secret to herself. The Swedish ale, I must say,
is excellent: I’ve still got a half left as Lizzie wanders
off to her next assignment: ice skating, as it happens,
with her daughter, at the Pavilion. “Be careful,” I
warn, and mull over whether or not to have a Black
Death vodka to wrap things up. Alex Leith
Photo by Alex Leith
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