Maré by Rafael Cagali

Maré opened on Church Road in Hove in the summer of 2025 with the quiet expectation that it would be the project Rafael Cagali — already a two-Michelin-starred chef at Da Terra in Bethnal Green — had been looking for. The speed with which it earned recognition surprised even the most optimistic observers: Michelin awarded the star in February 2026, less than seven months after the opening. It is the first star awarded to Brighton and Hove in over fifty years.

The cooking draws directly on Cagali's Brazilian-Italian heritage and a decade spent training in London's most technical kitchens. The menu moves fluently between an Italian classical spine (pasta courses, risotto, a mastery of acid and salt) and Brazilian injections — dendê, Amazonian fruit, a carefully argued use of pupunha palm hearts. The Sussex produce anchor — heritage tomatoes from Hailsham, South Downs lamb, Rye Bay scallops — pulls the cooking into the regional vernacular. The tasting menu runs to twelve courses.

The room seats forty across an open dining hall, with an eight-seat chef's counter facing the pass. The design is warm and deliberately unfussy — soft-wood panelling, low lighting, no white tablecloths — a pointed rejection of fine-dining formality. The wine list is eclectic and playful: serious Burgundy and Piedmont anchors, a thoughtful low-intervention section, and a Brazilian producer page that is, as far as we can tell, unique in British fine dining.

Head chef Ewan Waller (Cagali's longtime protégé) runs the kitchen day-to-day; Cagali himself splits his time between Maré and Da Terra. The restaurant is closed Sunday evening through Tuesday; Wednesday to Saturday dinner bookings are now running four to six weeks ahead, and Thursday lunch (12:00–14:00, £75) is the easiest and best-value way into the room.

Brighton's only starred dining room, the most talked-about opening on the south coast of England in a decade, and a menu ambitious enough that a client will still be thinking about it the next day — Maré is how you impress in Brighton. The Thursday lunch is the best-value business sitting; Friday or Saturday dinner is the full evening. Book six weeks ahead.