‘Chalk in West Sussex is an upscale eatery offering a perfectly balanced plate’

Photographs by Sophia Evans

A bright and airy establishment housed in a building near their wine store, Chalk’s menu centres sustainable Sussex produce and looked a lot fancier than anything we’d ever tried during our jaunts to Worthing. These typically involve dining in places that provide laminated menus, in-house playgrounds and fistfuls of chicken goujons for our assembled kids. As a bonus, Chalk’s wine list offered Ciara the chance to try many of the vineyard’s other offerings. And, as luck would have it, we were tripping to the south coast with her parents, Sean and Marian, the following month, so the die was cast.

Dining with Sean and Marian holds certain benefits. They’re lovely company and generally game for new experiences, while also being pleasingly fusty in their opinions toward cuisine. This is mostly expressed in their reactions to my cooking when they visit us in London. Many a time my trusty pho, Szechuan rice, or almond curry has rendered them politely dumbstruck, or else prompted one of Marian’s kindly, heartbreaking attempts at simulating enjoyment, usually accompanied by forced statements like “really interesting”, and “This is very different, isn’t it Sean?”

We’ve come to greatly enjoy foisting new food on them and I thought this upscale eatery, with its toothsome rural setting, fancy lighting, foams and gels and tweezered leaves, might provide great copy for this resentful, quite possibly vengeful, son-in-law. I’d be lying if some part of me didn’t relish the chance to depict them like the Beverly Hillbillies, in return for that one time they prepared for themselves a “light snack” of pork chops, mashed potatoes and broccoli, after I’d fed them a particularly divisive cooked-from-scratch ramen.

When we enter, it seems we’ve come to just the right sort of place. Chalk’s interiors are beautiful: overhead beams reassuringly old and gnarled, the flat white walls boasting slat windows – the kind that castle tour guides take great joy in telling you facilitated archers in turret warfare.

We declare an interest in trying some non-sparkling Wiston whites, which we’ve never tried but have heard are excellent. Our server informs us, with charming candour, that “there’s been a few problems with the vats”, which means they’re “opening fizzy”. The disclaimer’s vagueness is tantalising, and Marian takes up the interrogation. She possesses an ability to get information out of restaurant staff that would shame the SS. In one restaurant, she returned from a trip to the bathroom to announce that our waitress was 21, from Belgium, and studying at Central Saint Martins with a view to becoming a jewellery designer.

Here, however, she has no such luck. “It just happens sometimes,” our waitress tells us, so we make our choices from the remaining wine list. I opt for Wiston’s own pinot noir, the Twenty Six, because I’ve never been offered an English red before. (A sip or two confirms to me why.) Ciara and Marian opt for a crisp Lagar de Cervera Albarino, and Sean tries the Watervale riesling – both are excellent.

Our meal is a tasting menu, which I can tell my in-laws find intrinsically fancy because Marian says, “Oh, this is fancy.” Our first amuse-bouche infers more fanciness still, as it is not on the menu, and in everyone’s favourite flavour: “free”. It’s a delicious, tiny little tartlet with a nasturtium purée base and chalk-stream trout that’s been smoked in juniper, all topped with a fermented green strawberry.

Signs that they may not be fully on board continue with our first dish proper, cured sea bream with Nutbourne tomatoes, drizzled with verjuice and a dill oil. It’s a perfectly balanced plate, the tomatoes fresh and sweet, combining with the tangy bream and the minty freshness of the oil and verjuice. Sean enjoys it immensely although his opening statement of, “I thought bream was fish,” suggests he is not immediately sure what he’s eating. Marian is less impressed.

Next comes grilled mussels, barbecued halibut and haricot beans, topped with a mussel and mushroom foam. The plate in front of us looks almost laughably delicate, like something Mr Bean would be served in a skit. We are told it also features sea beets, rock samphire and celeriac, information my in-laws digest as if the dish in front of them contained zips, tax discs and Tippex. To all our surprise, they love it, avidly scooping up its earthy, complex flavours.

Our next dish is similarly stellar: succulent chicken marinated in piquant koji and kohlrabi in an aerated hollandaise sauce, served on a bed of sweetcorn and girolles with a punch of umami. My in-laws agree, with Marian pronouncing it “fine dining” in a manner which, for the first time, seems entirely earnest.

By the time we’ve all swooned over our two desserts – a rich, hefty chocolate tonka bean and whey caramel, and a sweetly tangy mess of stewed raspberries topped with vanilla cream – I might have been slightly crestfallen that my guests’ delight at almost everything in front of them had left me with very little to tease them over.

Thankfully, I had been saved. Our bread had arrived early on, served on a bed of small, heated pellets. Sean decided to pop one into his mouth, prompting a loud tooth clack.

When the laughter subsided, Sean winced as he asked, “I suppose that’s going into the article?”

“Never,” I told him, warmly, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Chalk, North Farm, Pulborough RH20 4BB (wistonestate.com). First courses from £14. Mains from £24. Desserts from £12. Wine from £13. Estate set menu £85pp