Just over a week ago, we had Rosie Birkett at The Curlew for lunch.

In her own words: ‘Rosie is a London-based freelance journalist specialising in food, restaurant and travel writing. She has written for The Guardian, the Independent on Sunday, The Spectator Scoff, Virgin Hotline magazine, Metro, Caterer and Hotelkeeper, Yes Chef! and Food Network UK, among others.’

We were delighted when Rosie got back in touch and flagged up a review of The Curlew she’d written for The Spectator’s online vehicle, Scoff. As you can imagine, we were nervous and excited when clicking on the hyperlink… here’s what our first reviewer had to say about The Curlew…

“When you’re lucky enough to eat out fairly often it’s easy to become rather used to lovely restaurant food. Sometimes you wonder if you’ve grown into one of those bilious old farts for whom everything is a limp imitation of those few legendary meals. And then. And then you have a meal so delicious it reminds you - as you sit wide-eyed, rosy-cheeked, replete - quite what it feels like to be blown away by food.

This happened to me recently at The Curlew in East Sussex. The restaurant is a white weather-boarded structure, once a coaching inn, on a scenic road somewhere near Bodiam Castle. It’s been a restaurant for many a year, but new owner Mark Colley – a former city boy who partnered with his wife Sara has turned his hand to hospitality – reopened it last July after nine months’ restructuring. “The only thing which is still the same is the weather-boarding,” he told me. “We couldn’t have opened it as it was – there were snail trails across the restaurant floor.” Not so any more. A chic, sleek interior beckons with the sort of decor associated with the Hotel du Vin chain. But frankly, with chef Neil McCue behind the stove, I’d be happy to sit on breeze blocks and eat off paper plates. Here is a man cooking some of the most mesmerizing British food you’re likely to find today.

Freshly-baked bread, warm from the oven with rosemary-infused dripping, whipped up to a creamy white consistency and topped with flakes of Maldon salt was comforting, herbal and savoury. Asparagus, broad bean flower and goose ham salad was stupendous – the leaves and tender tips dressed in a light Caesar dressing, with a golden crouton bearing salty, wafer-thin goose ham hand-smoked by the chef for five days, and shavings of fine Parmesan. A sparkling British take on a Caesar salad. But it was my next course of Romney Marsh lamb shoulder, peas, lamb bacon and mint dripping that had me in raptures.

This was a dish so seamlessly executed you’d think it was quite simple, but the explosion of flavours could only be achieved through technical brilliance. Two perfectly juicy, pink discs of lamb came resplendent on bulbous fresh peas and radishes with a rich jus – little nuggets of salted lemon picking up on the slight cumin seasoning of the lamb lardons. This ‘lamb bacon’ (something the chef picked up from an inspiring meal at Noma) is made with breast meat cooked for 36 hours at 63 degrees and the result is deep, melting morsels.

The hunks of lamb had been cooked sous vide – a method that can often leave meat lacking the flavours you get when you pan fry or oven roast. This is where McCue has had a stroke of genius, stripping off the fat from the shoulder, rendering it down, infusing it with mint and reintroducing it to the dish when he dresses the plate. The effect is that the meat dripping melts down into the dish – permeating it with that beautiful, nostalgic flavour of lamb fat and mint, nodding to the familiarity of Sunday roasts. Pink fir apple potatoes, earthy and waxy and slathered in butter came sprinkled with pretty little wild garlic flowers McCue had gathered from “down the road”. Eating these together with the other perfectly cooked ingredients was a bit like lying face down in a spring meadow and inhaling.

For dessert I had the Waldorf. Stilton ice cream was creamy, subtle and interesting and came with walnut sugar crisps and a salted celery and apple salad – the perfect finish for someone who usually opts for cheese. McCue is the first to admit he’s had a helping hand from nearby Michelin-starred chef Graham Garrett (Biddenden House), who is the Curlew’s Executive Chef, and together they’ve created a menu that will surprise and delight without breaking the bank (all main courses are £14.50). If this chef’s food, with its emphasis on the local and the seasonal, on beautiful produce, innovative techniques and flawless execution fails to move you, I’d check for a pulse.”