What: The new restaurant at the Hastings Contemporary art gallery in East Sussex. Coquina takes its cues largely from Spanish tapas bars, offering a creative-yet-crowd-pleasing menu. The restaurant is from the same stable as BAYTE, which launched in 2023 about a 30-minute walk away in trendy St Leonards-on-Sea. The restaurant is open for lunch from Wednesday to Sunday, and for dinner from Thursday to Saturday, and serves tea, coffee and cake from a counter during gallery opening hours.
Who: Coquina and BAYTE are both the creations of Ruby Boglione—whose parents own Petersham Nurseries—and Silvy Pilkington. The kitchen is run by Wil Hopson, who cut his teeth at restaurants including Kricket, Moro and Carousel before completing a Master’s in Food and Development, leading to a brief and unexpected career as a published academic author. He later founded and ran his own sustainable food delivery company, Zested, and worked in marketing for a regenerative charcuterie business. Following this, Hopson returned to the kitchen, working his way up to head chef at East Sussex winery Tillingham ahead of a stint at BAYTE.
The food: Hopson’s concise menu is extremely good value, with the majority of dishes priced at under a tenner. Options include cheese toastie with house kimchi and caramelised onions; a slice of potato tortilla with aioli and a green salad; and freekeh with labneh, roasted shallots and urfa chilli butter. The handful of dishes that break the £10 mark include Iberico pork collar with sherry sauce, apples and prunes; and a dish of mussels with cider and crème fraîche.
The vibe: Coquina has a mid-century aesthetic, with a striking red bar and cream Formica-topped tables. There’s also an outdoor area with green metal chairs and yellow and chocolate-brown tile-topped tables, with lemon trees dotted in between. Designed by HAT Projects, the award-winning gallery—which launched as the Jerwood Gallery in 2012 but was rebranded in 2019—is clad in 8,000 black tiles hand-glazed in Kent.
And another thing: The fact that Coquina is focused on very high-quality produce—meat is supplied by Haye Farm in Devon (which is owned by Boglione’s brother Harry), the fish is sourced from Hastings and Rye Harbour, and fruit and vegetables are sourced from regenerative suppliers—makes its low price point all the more impressive.
Rock-a-Nore Road, Hastings, East Sussex TN34 3DW