The Urchin

When I heard The Urchin was going to be opening near me, I was almost beside myself with excitement. Craft beer AND shellfish?! Two of my favourite things to consume, in one place? Sign me up!
After two weekends of going in to sample the beers, the third time was the charm, and I finally got to try the food; it did not disappoint. The quality of the food and the bottled beers is high, so overall, there are many hits, with a few niggly misses.
The hits first:
The feel and décor of the place is really nice. The reclaimed wood and metal finishes look clean and sleek without being cold. The staff is friendly and ready to talk about the beers and the food.
The bottled beer menu is big and pretty diverse. There are a lot of Belgian beers ranging from tripels to sours, in addition to some wonderful, not-​easy-​to-​find international beers, such as Hitachino and Little Creatures. The latter is particularly nice paired with the shellfish. There are 3 or 4 cask beers, at least one of which is local, and… well, I’ll get to the draught beers later.
The quality of the shellfish is high and it is indeed delicious. I had the garlic prawns, which were large and very garlicky and flavourful. There were 6 or 7 to an order, which combined with a fizzy beer, bread, and a shared order of the salt and pepper squid, chips and a greek salad, was plenty, but then, I’m a real hog. The prawns were succulent and sweet and damn good.
We also got oysters, which tasted like a clean, briny ocean breeze smells. That might sound wanky, but it’s true. If you like oysters, these were delicious and it’s a great place to knock some back.
My partner got the crab, which was sweet and flavourful, but…
The misses:
The crab was deeply situated in sauce, which, while tasty, made the business of eating it really difficult. You have to crack the legs yourself, which is pretty standard, and the staff do warn you about it, but I wonder if there might be a slightly less messy/​fiddly way of serving it. To be fair, my partner had not tried tucking into a whole crab before, which, if you have attempted it in your life, you know it’s a humbling, thankless experience that one doesn’t readily repeat often, unless you have steel teeth and you just don’t care. Sometimes eating with your hands is fun, but there were bits of crab flying everywhere and things were getting slippery and weird. People at neighbouring tables were also having the whole crab, and they were getting similarly flustered. It was kind of a mess.
The other things I would consider a miss are the prices of the bottled beers and the draught selections, both of which are sort of hard to argue with, but still might present a barrier for some (including me, depending on the day). High quality craft beer is not the cheapest to produce or import, so buying bottles of it can get spendy. Other craft beer pubs in Brighton and Hove usually have some craft draughts on hand to cushion the blow of the price of a bottle (and have some very competitive prices), but The Urchin’s draught selection leaves something to be desired, with Foster’s, Guinness, Sam Adams, and Heineken. I understand these beer lines are part of the lease, so the pub can’t really help it in that respect, but for those of us who love to try a craft beer on keg (rather than cask) and in smaller amounts than a pint, it’s a bit disappointing. I really hope in the future, more lines can get added.
All in all, I really like what the Urchin has to offer and I’d recommend it to a friend. The clientele seems to be deeply middle class (that’s neither a pejorative nor a compliment, it just is) and I’m curious to see how the place will grow or change over time. It’s on the top of my list of the next time I get a craving for some favourite international beers or a damn fine bowl of prawns.