Viva Lewes Issue #160 January 2020

FOOD
The Sussex Ox
Very locally sourced steak
What a fine feeling, after a muddy three-anda-half
hour yomp along the South Downs Way
from Eastbourne, to descend into the hamlet of
Milton Street, and to see the pub sign notifying us
that we’ve reached our destination: ‘The Sussex
Ox’. We’ve definitely earned lunch, my wife and I.
I’ve been before, of course, which means I’ve
really been looking forward to returning. The Ox,
you see, is owned by a local farmer, and much of
what’s on the menu is grown or reared in a nearby
field, making ‘food yards’ a more appropriate
term than ‘food miles’.
They serve a decent range of keg and cask ales,
too. Having left my boots in the hallway, I scan
the options and decide that an Unbarred Brewery
‘Apricot Sour’ sounds suitably thirst-slaking. And
so it proves to be: it’s refreshingly tart.
We are shown to a table by the window overlooking
the garden, and the gently rising hill beyond,
a verdant shade of recently rained-upon green.
The room has been painted buttermilk yellow:
it’s all wooden beams and old photos of the prize
bulls. There’s ample choice on the menu, but I
suspect I know what’s going to happen next.
“I’ll have the haddock soup and the fillet steak,”
says Rowena, opting, when asked, for ‘medium
rare’. “I’ll have the haddock soup and the fillet
steak,” I say. “Medium rare.” We have very
similar tastes: she likes ordering first so as not to
seem to be copying me. We also get some bread
and oil, and anchovies, to temper our hunger
while we wait.
The menu puts an asterisk after every item that’s
grown in the parish, so the exact nature of what
we’ve chosen is: ‘smoked haddock leek and potato
soup, poached duck egg*, truffle oil £8’, and ‘Fillet
steak*, Parmenter potatoes*, honey roasted root
vegetables, spinach, thyme jus £24’. This being
a family-run business, there’s every chance, I
ponder, that the chef knew the name of the cow
we’re about to eat.
The food is delicious, from the first dip of the
brown bread into the bowl of oil, to the last forkful
of steak. The latter, of course, is the real star of
the show, and it’s perfectly cooked, ever so slightly
charred on the outside, and pink inside. Even
Rowena, a harsh judge of over-cooked steaks,
offers her approval.
The Sussex Ox is the sort of place where you
don’t rush yourself. Even so, when we finish the
coffee we’ve ordered to wash down the warm
treacle tart with clotted cream (£6.50) that
has turned this into a four-course meal, we’re
surprised to realise that we’ve been there for two
hours. If it were summer, of course, we’d make
our way back onto the hills. But it’ll get dark
soon, so, happily sated, if £100+ poorer, we get a
taxi to Seaford train station instead.
Alex Leith
thesussexox.co.uk
Photos by Rowena Easton
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