Hastings eats better than its reputation and considerably more cheaply than anywhere comparable on this coast. Two things drive it: a fishing fleet landing on the beach every morning, and a population that has never had the money to sustain expensive restaurants, which has produced a town full of good, informal, well-priced places instead.
The geography splits three ways. The Old Town — the High Street, George Street and the Stade — has the pubs, the fish and the character. The town centre around Robertson Street and Claremont has the restaurants. And St Leonards, two kilometres west, has the more self-consciously stylish end.
You are standing next to the largest beach-launched fishing fleet in Europe, and the fish is the point.
The fish stalls on the Stade, beside the net shops, sell what came in that morning — plaice, sole, cod, skate, and whatever else the boats found. Several also do cooked food. It is the cheapest good meal in the town and you eat it looking at the boats that caught it.
For a table, Undercliffe House on Rock-a-Nore does modern cooking with the fishing beach outside the window and has become one of the town’s best-regarded restaurants. The Old Town has several fish and chip shops and the seafront has more; the standard is high because the supply is local.
Hastings has an unusually strong Turkish and Levantine restaurant scene, and it is the thing that surprises visitors most.
Grand Pera on Harold Place and Nazar on Claremont are the two Turkish restaurants that Hastings argues about, and both are consistently among the best-rated places in the town. Old Town Mezze and BBQ on East Parade does the same on a smaller scale in the Old Town. Liban Coast in St Leonards is Lebanese and excellent. Lamarina on White Rock covers the broader Mediterranean.
Add La Delizia in the Old Custom House on East Parade and La Cucina on Cambridge Road for Italian, and you have a town centre with a genuinely international list at prices that would look like a misprint in Brighton.
The Old Town’s pubs are its social spine, and there are a lot of them for a small area. The Jenny Lind on the High Street is a good all-rounder with rooms above. The Seadog on Station Road is a well-regarded pub with its own rooms and a strong food reputation. Brewing Brothers runs a beer hall in a courtyard and is part of a lively local brewing scene.
Beyond those, the High Street and All Saints Street between them carry a dozen more, most of them small, most of them old, and several with live music. Hastings has an unusually good gig culture for its size.
The Old Town has a great many small independent cafés, and so does St Leonards, where the arrival of a substantial creative population over the last two decades has produced a strip of coffee shops, delis and small restaurants along Kings Road and Norman Road.
Hastings Contemporary on the Stade has a gallery café looking straight out at the fishing beach, which is one of the better places in the town to sit with a coffee and watch the weather.
The seafront and the Stade have the obvious ones. The East Hill, reached by the cliff railway, has a café at the top with the whole town below it. And the De La Warr Pavilion at Bexhill, eight kilometres west, has a first-floor terrace over the sea that is worth the journey on a clear day.
Fish, first and last. Beyond that, Sussex has good lamb, and the county is now serious wine country — several sparkling wine producers are within half an hour and a number of local restaurants list them. Hastings also has its own brewing scene and a growing number of small producers.
Booking. Hastings is busy on summer weekends and during Old Town Carnival Week in August, and completely full over the May Day bank holiday for Jack in the Green. Book then; otherwise you can generally walk in.
Timing. The fish stalls work to the boats rather than to office hours — morning is when the choice is best.
Sundays and Mondays. A number of the smaller independents close, particularly out of season.
Getting there. The Old Town and the town centre are ten minutes apart on foot along the seafront; St Leonards is another twenty minutes’ walk or a two-minute train.
Value. It is worth saying plainly that Hastings is cheap. A meal that would cost forty pounds a head in Brighton costs a good deal less here, and the cooking is frequently better.
Breakfast in one of the Old Town cafés on George Street or the High Street. Mid-morning, walk down to the Stade and buy something from the fish stalls to take away, or just look at what came in. Lunch at Hastings Contemporary’s café with the fishing beach outside the window, or fish and chips eaten on the shingle. Afternoon coffee somewhere in the twittens. Dinner at Grand Pera, Nazar or Undercliffe House. And a last drink in one of the Old Town pubs, where there is a fair chance of live music.
The whole circuit is inside twenty minutes’ walk and it will cost you considerably less than the equivalent day in any other south-coast town.
Hastings is a year-round town rather than a summer-only one — the resident population is large enough to keep the Old Town pubs and the town-centre restaurants open through the winter. What does change is the seafront trade, which thins out from November, and some of the smaller independents, which close on Mondays and Tuesdays out of season.
The fish is best in the colder months, which is when the boats land the most and the shellfish are at their best.
It is worth explaining, because the mix is unusual. Hastings has had a substantial Turkish and Kurdish community for decades, which accounts for the density and the quality of the Turkish restaurants — this is not a couple of places but a genuine cluster, and it is the food locals name first when asked.
Layered on top is a more recent arrival: from the 2000s onwards, artists, musicians and small businesses priced out of Brighton and London moved into St Leonards and the Old Town, and brought a coffee-and-small-plates culture with them. That is what Kings Road and Norman Road in St Leonards now are.
Underneath both is the fishing fleet, which has been landing on the beach for a thousand years and still supplies the stalls on the Stade every morning.
The result is a town where you can eat Turkish, Lebanese, Italian and modern British cooking, or buy plaice off a boat, within a mile of each other, at prices that have not caught up with any of it.
At the stalls on the Stade, beside the net shops, where the beach-launched fleet lands. Go in the morning.
Undercliffe House on Rock-a-Nore for the cooking and the setting; Grand Pera or Nazar for the town’s best-loved Turkish food.
The Old Town pubs on the High Street and All Saints Street, and the Brewing Brothers courtyard.
No. It is among the cheapest places to eat well on the south coast.
Yes — Kings Road and Norman Road have become the town’s most interesting eating and drinking strip, and Liban Coast on Marine Court is one of the best restaurants in the borough.