I love a thoughtful pub renovation; it’s one of my favourite things. Anyone can shove a skip outside a pub, then tear out its heart and history in a bid to make things modern. And no one thanks breweries and landlords afterwards for creating sterile spaces that play endless Sky Sports. Then you have places such as the Cove at Fairlight, near Hastings, which closed in 2014 and sat about looking sad until Olivia Loveridge and Henry David took it on this spring and gave it new life.
The wood-fronted pub is painted black, giving it the air of one of the 50 or so 16th-century net huts along the shingle beach in Hastings Old Town. The pub sign is an ethereal, hand-painted image of midnight swimmers letting it all hang out on the naturist beach just up coast. Disappointingly, no naturists were spotted during my time at the Cove; the clientele in the beer garden had all chosen to wear pants and shoes to enjoy their pints of Harvey’s Sussex Best and plates of bitterballen, an addictive, croquette-like Dutch bar snack, usually made with meat but here with mustardy cauliflower.
