THE PLACE: There are a lot of cafes in Brighton, but recently the globalised chains have dominated. Why oh, why. Anything that isn’t a fucking Starbucks these days is a bonus, but Tic Toc is interesting more than just by default. Nicely parked around the corner from Rounder, it’s taken the old End Of The Lanes spot and given it a continental feel. Randomly hip design has given it a cool clientele and as the sun shone down the open windows made it a bloody nice place to be.

THE MEAL: The simple menu doesn’t take long to work through, but there should be something for everyone. The warm day makes the mint-laden homemade lemonade sharper and more refreshing, almost like a virgin mojito. From there things stay full of flavour and freshness. The Greek salad is more than substantial, full of leaves and feta, perfectly dressed to be tasty without oily. One of the open top sandwiches known as The Italian catches our eye and turns out to be more like a rustic pizza than half a cheese’n’pickle – chunks of mozzarella on top of basil and pesto all on a bruschetta-esque toast. Every bit as good is the chicken in harissa with pomegranate-topped cous cous. Both come with enough salad to nail two of your five a day, something we’d shout about on the menu.

VERDICT: One half of the SOURCE review team has as much enthusiasm for salad as eating a tramp’s toenail clippings but even he shovelled the prominent greenery down with glee. Decent prices, good portions, great décor, but mainly this is about amazing ingredients. Loads of flavours without being bamboozled, the whole experience screamed ‘fresh’.

WERE WE SUSSED: Well, the place is owned by Transformer member Ben and ex-Audio promoter Andrew, both of who were present when we rocked up. We were subtle but we know them both, so they probably clocked us. Everyone else’s food looked as good as ours though.

TIC TOC CAFÉ
Meeting House Lane
(01273) 770 115
Times TBC