Viva Lewes Issue #134 November 2017

FOOD REVIEW
Fuego Lounge
Workin' for the chain gang
It’s Tuesday lunchtime,
and luckily my
lunch date Caroline
has arrived before
me, because she’s
bagged what is pretty
much the last decent
table left – an ample
one for four with a
pop-art representation
of a cowboy
on it – in Fuego
Lounge. She waves
through the crowd, I sit down.
It’s the first time I’ve been since its freebie opening
so the place is still fairly unfamiliar. I remember
all the random portrait paintings on the walls,
the jazzy zig-zaggy design behind the bar, the
‘carefully thrown together’ ambience of the place.
It’s Lewes, but not as we know it. In fact the
Lounger chain is an enterprise run out of Bristol,
where the first one opened. This, I’ve been told,
is number 106. And counting, obviously.
We fill in the what’s-happened-since-we-last-met
gaps, look at the menus. Sandwiches start at just
under six quid; the mains start at £8.95 (‘Tin Pan
Louie’s Beef Chillie’) and run through to the
most expensive dish on the card, ‘Steak frites’
at £14.95, described as ‘8oz 28 day-aged Black
Angus sirloin steak with garlic butter, wild rocket
& parmesan salad and fries’.
“Who’s paying?” asks Caroline.
“Viva’s paying,” I reply.
“I’ll have the steak frites.”
I decide, in a place which everyone is referring to
as ‘that new tapas bar’, that I’ll go for three small
dishes: salt & pepper squid, pork belly squares,
and patatas bravas. I order a pint of Lounger’s
own ‘Cruiser’s
Atlantic Pale Ale’,
Caroline asks for a
glass of tap water.
You pour your own,
from an extravagant
pineapple-shaped
cut-glass decanter.
I can just make out
Oasis playing in the
background, though
it’s very much that:
the hubbub of
chatter is the predominant sound. The portrait
directly behind Caroline looks strangely like
Alice Dudeney.
Some garlic bread, which I’ve ordered as a starter,
arrives. Then, after we’ve been through about ten
topics of conversation, and I’ve drained the last
dregs of my pint, the food. It’s brought by a smiley
girl who's still in or barely out of her teens,
which seems to be the average age of her bustling
colleagues, who have not been forced into any
sort of uniform. I don’t know about the pay, but
it looks like a great place to work, if you’re of a
certain age.
Caroline makes the odd appreciative noise as she
saws through her steak. The verdict on my three
tapas is: salt and pepper squid: excellent. Patatas
bravas: adequate. Pork belly: nice meat but the
sauce tastes too vinegary for me. It all comes with
slices of soft crusty white bread.
Fuego Lounge is obviously flavour of the month.
It offers something nowhere else offers. I’m sure
I’ll find myself there on a regular basis. The girl
who serves our macchiatos has pink hair. Lewes,
like it or not, is on the move.
Alex Leith
Photo by Alex Leith
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