The Cricketers

The Cricketers is the oldest pub in Brighton, a block from the sea and at the southwest edge of The Lanes. In Brighton it became the touchstone among us should we go our separate ways.

It’s a wonderful traditional pub, the décor well-preserved Nineteenth Century—all brass and dark wood—rather than what must have been a more prosaic Sixteenth Century establishment.

Although the pub was attractive, and a covered court adjoined the building, there were tables in front on Black Lion Street.

We were to meet in The Lanes one afternoon, and I was hungry with time to spare. There was a host of possible adventures, shawarma to sushi…but one of the sandwiches I’d seen go by at the Cricketers was the most appealing choice at that moment..

The kitchen offered a variety of sandwich fillings—egg-mayonnaise, tomato; tomato cheese & onion, chicken salad and others—to be stuffed in a range of fresh breads—baguette, rye, wheat… I ordered a mature cheddar sandwich on crusty white, with Sussex Pickle (a chutney not dissimilar to Branston Pickle or the Welsh Pencae Mawr, and chips.

The pub lunch, which can be quite elaborate—think steak & mushroom pie, vegetables, salad and chips—but I prefer the simple sandwich: Here the bread was sliced thick from a crusty loaf; with butter and marmalade that bread could be dessert…or an extraordinary French Toast. The cheese was very sharp, the Sussex Pickle’s sweet-sour-ish flavor a more than adequate companion…and crisp chips, a fresh bottle of brown sauce, and a pint of Stella Artois.

It was a very good mid-day stop.