"I wove our way to the Jolly Sportsman at East Chiltington, tucked away among the winding, sunken lanes of Sussex. The evening light on cornfield, copse and hedgerow had beguiling, golden amber glow to it. It was one of those days when you felt you had strayed into a different time, when the world was a simpler, easier and much nicer place. That feeling did not entirely disappear once we had entered the Jolly Sportsman either.
There were barrels of bitter behind the bar.... then there were the dining rooms, and the people sitting at the tables in them, and you immediately knew that you'd never have found an eating place like this in former times, what with the posters on the walls, the open neck shirted informality and that sense of the middle class at their ease. Either would you have got the length and variety on the wine list, nor the breadth and intelligence on the menu.... The Jolly Sportsman is another in that breed of gastro/pub.... the same principles apply to them as to restaurants of more orthadox calling; you need a decent chef, an able manager and sense of personal relationship with the customer. All these qualities The Jolly Sportsman shows every sign of possessing in abundance, being under the wing of that practiced restauranteur, Bruce Wass.
The dishes on the menu, and the day's particular offerings, stood full square in the European mainstream - Italian Risotto and gnocchi with mussels and clams, French chicken liver parfait and roast lamb with garlic sauce, and British braised monkfish with samphire and brown shrimps, and Cornish lobster with salad and potatoes..... Each individual item had been looked after with care."
