Palmito is a tiny, semi-orderly explosion of flavour on the Brighton/Hove border, and reserving one of its 20 seats is already a battle, so nobody living nearby will thank me for visiting. It sits on the site of a former takeaway, now va-va-voomed with pink paint and fairy lights, but there’s still only enough room to swing a small shrew without sweeping its whisker through someone’s Colombian rocoto chilli salsa.
This is a sort-of Latin American restaurant – or at least the cocktails and the soundtrack are. Pineapple and jalapeño mezcalitas were on the menu when we went, alongside cachaça cristalina and velvet falernum caipirinhas, but then the pre-dinner snacks included lentil papad with plum chutney, which is decidedly Indian, albeit with a condiment redolent of my gran’s linen cupboard, which brimmed with homemade preserves.
