Isaac At Gloucester Street

We went to the early dinner sitting at 6pm, we both thought the food was imaginative and delicious. It does clearly state on their website that you only get a 2 hour slot for your meal, but the reality of this is that they want you paid up and out the door after 2 hours so the meal actually finishes at 7.40 - to us it felt a little rushed for a 6 course dining experience which is also expensive. As said the food was great and the service knowledgable and polite, but I think it would have been a better experience for us to go the later sitting.

Thoroughly enjoyed our first visit to Isaac. Only two other tables were in action for our 6pm visit, which gave a very relaxed, almost homely feel to the service, with lots of time for the knowledgeable sommelier to chat and the waiter to explain the dishes. Each of the 8 or so courses on the tasting menu offered up something different to anything I had had before, whether it be a flavour combination or ingredient, an oil, a herb or a texture, and we really enjoyed the way inexpensive ingredients such as turnip and carrot were elevated. As a carnivore I felt the menu was possibly missing a meat dish beyond the ham hock second course - perhaps a bit of Sussex lamb - which would also have provided an opportunity for the English-only wine flight to have had a red wine to contrast with the fruit forward whites. The monkfish dish was lovely, but the blackberry meringue was exceptional. The treacle and stout bread with whipped butter was off the charts good, but could have done with coming out a bit earlier. Yes, it’s not cheap, £120 a head with a wine flight, but there’s a level of cooking skill and invention here that you couldn’t easily replicate at home and that is what you pay for. I’d probably ditch the TVs providing overhead shots of the plating, and I’m not sure how comfortable I’d feel when the dining room was packed out, but this is a seriously good restaurant that deserves to survive the storm that hospitality is currently experiencing. People of Brighton (& Hove), you don’t know how lucky you are to have so many good places to eat on your doorstep!

A gastronomic experience like no other. The tasting menu and alcohol companions will cost you £95 pounds, and that's without a coffee or a tip, and you won't be full up afterwards. They do offer a reduced set menu, and you don't have to get the alcohol, so you could eat for as little as £30. But let's face it, that's not why you come to a place like this. You come for the tasting menu, and the taste is incredible.

Perfectly adequate with signs of greatness, but in the end, sub-spectacular. The restaurant and food were slightly above average, but we found Issac to lack an ambience. The restaurant was far too bright for evening dining and the atmosphere was a bit bland. Vegetarian options were just the main tasting menu without ingredients that included meat. It lacked innovation and the veggie/pescatarian in our group felt short-changed. We’ve been wanting to go to Issac for several years and after seeing it on the Michelin guide and having tried most others we decided to give it a try. The tasting menu was nicely portioned and I am happy that I got to experience it, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to go back.