The Times November 26, 2005
Cath Urquhart
Travel Editor of The Times
Hastings reborn: a modern parable of sourdough loaves and eco-fishers
A STYLISH boutique hotel. A chef who has worked at Le Caprice. A beautiful country park for walks by the sea. An all-organic bakery. It really wasn’t what I’d been expecting when I visited Hastings and neighbouring St Leonards last weekend.
More often the news from this corner of East Sussex is less than cheerful. Sion Jenkins, the former deputy headteacher accused of murdering his foster daughter at their home in Hastings, is currently being retried at the Old Bailey. Last month five teenagers were killed in a car accident involving a stolen vehicle in St Leonards. And Hastings is recognised as one of the most deprived boroughs in the South East.
But a wind of change is blowing. Six months ago, the chef Nick Hales, who spent 16 years in London at restaurants such as Le Caprice and L’Odeon, opened St Clement’s in St Leonards, featuring local produce such as Dover sole, beef from nearby Hooe and apples from Kent. I booked in last weekend (01424 200355) — my delicious, and enormous, main course of Rye Bay plaice was a reasonable £10.50. The restaurant is one reason diners are now driving from surrounding towns to Hastings, not previously considered a foodie spot (though the Mermaid on the seafront does excellent fish and chips).
Earlier this year Craig Sams, founder of Green & Black’s organic chocolate and a Hastings resident, took over Judges Bakery (est. 1826) and turned it into an all-organic food store, adding sourdough loaves and croissants to the traditional buns and sausage rolls. Hastings also has an independent cinema; its historic fishing fleet recently won an award for the sustainable way it catches Dover sole, herring and mackerel; and there’s exciting talk of developing an eco-park on a landfill site between Hastings and Bexhill.
From the visitor’s point of view, perhaps the most interesting development is the opening of the surprisingly exotic Zanzibar hotel in St Leonards.
As I’ve noted before, the opening of one stylish, good-value hotel can transform a day-trip destination into a weekend break option — with all the benefits this can bring to a tired seaside resort. It happened in Whitstable with the opening of the Hotel Continental and the Oyster Fishery Restaurant and again, two years ago, in Camber Sands, where The Place has brought cheap, chic rooms and decent food to a run-down resort. Now its sister property, The Bell Hotel, is doing something similar at Sandwich in Kent. I hope the Zanzibar and other exciting schemes have the same healthy effect on Hastings.