Happy New Year and welcome to 2022 – we made it!
It did feel a little touch and go there didn’t it?! This year will be better/crazier/harder than 2021 (delete whichever do not apply) BUT one thing we can promise here at Cin Cin is that each year is tastier than the last.
We kick off 2022 with our Italian take on Veganuary for those looking to rebalance after a heavy Christmas schedule or wanting to give a little back to our environment. Read on for a sneak peak at our January Vegan menu and our Vegan event later this month.
And later in January we’ve got some great ragu recipes to share for Slow Cooking Month AND don’t forget it’s Burns Night on the 25th… who said January had to be boring and blue?
Cin Cin Dine At Home
After a very busy Christmas and New Years Eve set of delivery days – thanks to all you lovely people ordering our festive At Home products – it’s time to give our hard working team a well earned break this week.
So Cin Cin At Home will be back next week and available to order from the 10th January for collection and delivery across Brighton and Hove on 13th to 15 January.
Our chefs have created an incredible menu especially to help blow away those January blues. Stay tuned!
Veganuary
We are very proud to be kicking off Veganuary in the UK’s most vegan-friendly area – Brighton and Hove – with our own Italian take on vegan dishes.
January has long been considered a month of change and resolutions, a time where we reflect after a heavy end to the year that often comes with December. It’s no wonder then that for many, it is also synonymous with Veganuary, a month-long initiative to omit or reduce animal derived products and produce in favour of a plant-based diet.
Head Chef Jamie Halsall has created an indulgent four course vegan set menu that stays true to our authentic Italian roots and will be available for just £35 per person throughout the month of January – BOOK NOW:
Nocellara del Belice olives marinated in lemon, chilli & garlic
Rosemary house focaccia, Valdibella EVO & balsamic
Salad of celeriac, pear, grumolo & hazelnut
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Roasted cauliflower, radicchio, pickled golden sultana, kale pesto
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Culurgiones of sweet potato, January king cabbage, tomato fondue & roasted chestnut
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Pear & almond cannoli, polenta & olive oil cake
Salt Cod Mousse
The perfect appetiser to whip up at home over the festive period!
Ingredients
50g Cod
Rocksalt
1/4 of 1 White of a leek
1/4 of 1 Onion
1/4 of 1 Banana shallot
1/2 of 1 Garlic clove
1.5 Bronze gelatine leaves
60ml Milk
100ml Double cream
Chopped chives
Salt & Pepper
Method
1. 24 hours prior to preparing the mousse, cover the cod in rock salt for 24 hours, washing the salt of prior to preparing the mousse
2. Start by finely dicing the vegetables
3. Add the vegetables to the pan and sweat them for 5 minutes in a little oil, salt and pepper
4. Add the cod and milk to the pan, cover in cling film and bring to a simmer
5. Leave covered for 5 minutes, in the meantime soak the gelatine in cold water
6. When ready, add the gelatine leaves into the cod and milk mixture and blend everything on high for a few minutes
7. Pour the mixture into a bowl to set
8. Once set, whip the cream to soft peaks
9. Beat down the set cod cream
10. Fold the whipped cream into the cod mixture
11. If you would like to add chives, add them now
12. Season with salt and pepper
Enjoy!
Beef shin ragu with pickled onions & focaccia crumb
Ingredients
Ragu
1 x Carrot
1 x Onion
1 x Celery stick
1 x Garlic clove
2kg Beef Shin (no bone)
660g Blended tomatoes
660g x Beef Stock
170ml x Red Wine
Bouquet garni of 4 springs of thyme, 2 springs of rosemary, 3 bay leave
70g Mascarpone
Lemon
Pasta of your choice
Crumb
200g x Focaccia
20ml x Olive oil
10g x Finely chopped rosemary
Salt and pepper
Pickled Onions
1x Red onion (peeled, sliced into wedges)
100ml Red wine vinegar
60ml Red cooking wine
20ml Water
70g Sugar
Method
Ragu
1. Start by finely dicing the carrot, onion, celery and garlic
2. In a medium size pan, heat a little olive oil and add in the chopped ingredients
3. Sweat on a low heat for 8-10 minutes until very soft and translucent.
4. Season the beef. Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a large oven proof pan
5. Sear the beef on all sides
6. Add the softened vegetables, blended tomatoes, red wine, beef stock and bouquet garni. Stir to combine and bring to a boil
7. Transfer to a 90 degrees c, preheated oven and cover in tinfoil or a lid
8. Cook for 10 hours
9. Remove the beef from the pan and shred
10. Reduce the sauce on a medium heat
11. Whilst the sauce is reducing shred the beef
12. Add the beef back to the sauce once reduced
13. Cook your pasta
14. Prior to serving, finish by stirring in 60g mascarpone, a squeeze of lemon juice and season to taste
15. Combine the ragu with your pasta
16. Serve with a sprinkling of crumb & pickled onions
Crumb
1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C
2. Dice the focaccia and bake for 45 minutes
3. Once cool, blend into crumbs
4. Heat a pan and toast the crumbs along with the oil and the finely chopped rosemary
Pickled Onions
1. Add the red wine vinegar, red wine, sugar and water to a saucepan over a medium heat
2. Bring the liquid to a boil
3. Add the red onion wedges
4. Simmer for 2-3 minutes
5. Strain the onions and reduce the liquid by two thirds
6. Pour the reduction back over the onions
Chef Ollie – BITE Sussex Rising Star Awards
Our very own Ollie Geering, supreme sous chef of our Hove restaurant, was nominated to take part in the BITE Sussex Rising Star Awards. It’s recognition of the contribution that young people make to the incredible food, drink and hospitality sectors of Sussex.
We are extremely proud to announce that Ollie was highly commended for his work at Cin Cin during the ceremony.
Ollie is a highly dedicated part of our team, a very talented chef with a keen eye for detail and an all round lovely guy to have on our side. I am sure many of you will have been greeted with his infectious smile and giggling laugh over the pass at Cin Cin Hove.
Well done Chef from David, Jamie and all the team at Cin Cin Hove.
Christmas Negroni is baaaaaack!!
Back again in 2021 by popular demand, Negroni drinkers rejoice!
Our Christmas Negroni takes the Cin Cin classic recipe to the next festive level and is now on sale for delivery to your door or collection from Hove or even as the perfect Christmas aperitivo gift for that special someone!
Starting off with Regal Rogue organic Wild Rose vermouth, Malfy Originale gin, Campari & Fee Brothers rhubarb bitters, we add our own mix of winter spices & fruits – orange, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, figs, cherries & sultana – allowing the batch to rest for 15 days before sealing in our recyclable 500ml pouch. ?
Perfect for sharing and quaffing over the festive period, our Cin Cin Christmas Negroni pouch will serve 6-7 Negronis over ice or even more served as a Negroni Sbagliato topped with Prosecco or soda. Don’t forget a slice of orange! Buon Natale! ?
Are you ready for some festive feasting?
You better be quick off the mark this festive season as our Christmas Dine at Home boxes sell out quicker than Glastonbury! Our wonderful chefs have again pulled out all the stops this year to ensure that you and your loved ones enjoy a festive feast to remember.
Who wants turkey on Christmas Day when you can tuck into Cin Cin?!
Our Dine at Home boxes keep perfectly in the fridge up to two days – if you can hold off that long! (Wink Emoji) Choose from our 3 course box for two or go all out for our 5 course Chef’s Menu, both available with vegetarian options.
DO NOT MISS OUT! These are on sale now so place your order for collection or delivery across Brighton and Hove on the 23rd and 24th December.
Read more of the many winning plaudits our Fitzrovia restaurant has received from the press since opening this summer…
Toast of London: the Cin Cin pair on their London debut
Brighton & Hove-based Italian restaurant group Cin Cin has opened a London outpost off the back of a successful, pandemic-born delivery service.
This gorgeous and intimate neighbourhood Italian restaurant in Fitzrovia has just opened with 20 seats inside and 20 plus outside on a south facing corner with lots of afternoon sun, it’s perfect for alfresco dining. Service is utterly charming and the food is classically Italian but with lots of clever twists like a rich arancino of crab on a basil emulsion and a gnocchi which has had the Cacio e Pepe treatment. For dessert, they have the creamiest Zabaglione, one of Italy’s ancient Venetian specialities.
Service is utterly charming
THE LUXURIATE LIFE GUIDE TO A NIGHT OUT IN LONDON
No particular regional affiliation in Italy, and the menu bounces happily around Sicilian seafood and Roman pasta dishes — ‘just things we like’, says our waiter. When we visit that includes burrata with red pesto and asparagus, crab arancini, sea bream (crispy skinned and perfect), and a plate of Cuore di Vesuvio tomatoes — part of the antipasti, but so good if they’d been served as a dish in their own right we’d have still been heart-eyed over them.
There aren’t any lowlights, tbh. We reckon the would-order-again prize goes to the courgette cacio e pepe, with gnocchi, rather than pasta — bits of al dente Trombetta courgette scattered in there, velvety sauce, gnocchi soaking it up thirstily. And the tomatoes (see above in their no filter, eye searingly bright glory), with just a slick of pepper-laced vinegar across them, tasting about as vividly of Italian sunshine as a tomato can. Or the focaccia, with its fluffy, softly elastic springiness.
There aren’t any lowlights.
Cin Cin started life back in 2013 when chef-owner David Toscano launched a pasta van in Brighton as a passion project on the side of his full-time job as a lawyer. Three years later, Toscano ditched his suits for good, donning an apron more permanently and bedding Cin Cin into a bricks and mortar building off thriving North Laine. It soon grew a reputation as the best pasta restaurant in the city, spawning a second site in Hove in 2018. Now, Toscano is bringing his concept to London, opening in the former site of lauded seafood restaurant Bonnie Gull on Foley Street. The intimate restaurant seats up to 30 and focuses on seasonal Italian dishes which may, depending on the time of year you visit, include: crab arancino with warm basil emulsion; ravioli of truffled potato with asparagus and confit yolk; and velvety date ice cream affogato with Tosolini liqueur.
Cin Cin indeed!
Best new restaurants: London 2021’s hottest gastronomic ventures, Culture Whisper
Dine At Home
This week’s menu sees the return of the decadently moreish Burrata with truffled celeriac and rocket.
What could be more in-keeping with the changing seasons than the mighty truffle?
The earthy flavours of the black Autumn truffle have a wonderful heady aroma. Intense & addictive, this truffle has a more intense aroma than its summer cousin.
Having grown through the year under the shade of deciduous trees, harvest season arrives between October and mid March.
And all of this flavour is packed into our Dine At Home menu this week, guaranteed to bring a little autumnal sunshine into your life this weekend.
Pre order your dine at home experience now.
Treat your family, friends, loved ones or colleagues with a voucher for a fun dining experience at our award-winning restaurants in Hove and London or on our Cin Cin At Home delivery service.
Your voucher is beautifully designed and will be emailed to you, ready to be printed from your printer at home or forwarded directly to the recipient.
A Cin Cin voucher is the perfect gift for lovers of Italian food & dining.
Let them enjoy a culinary journey with our ever changing 5 course Chef’s Menu, showing off our chef’s absolute favourite dishes using only the finest seasonal produce. And you have the option to pair this sumptuous menu with our expertly chosen Italian wine flight complimenting each dish – perfect for the food and wine enthusiast in your life.
Read all about it! Our Fitzrovia restaurant has been winning plaudits from the press since opening this summer.
There are sneaky hints of the old “fine dining” here — the chef Jamie Halsall has a bit of form on the fancy-pants front, and it seeps out every now and then. That flourish of “giardiniera” salad, truffle sightings, the emulsions, the “hazelnut agrodolce” with the sea bass. Our tortelloni, stuffed with a delicate, almost liquid pea puree, is accessorised by petals of Tropea onion, fresh peas that pop happily in the mouth, pea shoots and the teeniest dice of mortadella. There’s a lot going on. This is not a complaint: basic pasta is good, elevated pasta is also good.
Here’s to eating, drinking, laughing, being alive. Cin cin.
Cin Cin started life as a Brighton street food destination based in a 1972 Fiat 850 van. As its popularity grew, founder David Toscano decided to throw in his day job as a lawyer and open his first restaurant with head chef Jamie Halsall. Next came accolades and a cult following and the duo opened their second restaurant, this time in Hove, in 2018. Since then, Cin Cin has become famed for its outstanding cooking, excellent service and for creating an intimate local restaurant feel in both outposts. In Brighton, it is everyone’s favourite place to sink a delicious bowl of pasta washed down by a Cin Cin Bellini. For summer 2021, this much-loved dining spot has arrived in London’s Fitzrovia where it has managed to recreate the same intimate neighbourly atmosphere that made it a hit on the south coast. The staff are warm and welcoming, and the food is top rate. Even the small starter dishes, the olives and tomatoes, are excellent, tasting the way they ought to not bland and flavourless which can be the case in the UK.
Do yourself a favour and order the gnocchi cacio e pepe – a perfectly cooked dish that will no doubt attract repeat diners.
For food-obsessed Londoners, it can be easy to forget the bounties that lie in wait in coastal towns and cities an hour or two away, and while Brighton’s food scene has always been decent, the last decade or so has seen more than a handful of excellent destination and neighbourhood restaurants open up, and a food scene that’s quietly excelled under its own steam. Now, a fair few years after Cin Cin’s two beachside Brighton restaurants opened up, founder David Toscano and head chef Jamie Halsall have brought its artful Italian fresh pasta and sharing plates up the A23 to Foley Street.
A beautiful blend of richness offset by freshness, and pretty much summer on a plate.
The specials board captured our attention immediately: crudo with orange, fennel rabbit cacciatore, green olive and soft polenta; bigoli with anchovy, lemon, chilli and focaccia crumb; lemon meringue pie, blood orange sorbet. Cin Cin’s menu uses the best of British ingredients such as Blythburgh pork and south coast crab, Italian style, along with twists on classics including gnocchi cacio e pepe with Trombetta courgettes, burrata with truffled prosciutto and a Marinda tomato salad with lambrusco marinade that’s a must-order. Start with a glass of Franciacorta (Italy’s answer to champagne and a step up from prosecco) or the house negroni featuring Australian Regal red vermouth and rhubarb bitters, a nod to the owner’s Sydney heritage. Décor is relaxed and there are plenty of outdoor tables in this buzzy part of Fitzrovia, not far from Oxford Street
Casual Italian using the best of British ingredients.
We are particularly proud of our Arancino so when it comes down to designing the upcoming Dine At Home menu, our chefs take great pleasure in introducing new recipes to our customers. The ingredients are always carefully sourced from the best producers as this ensures only the highest quality of ingredients passes your lips.
On this week’s dine At Home menu, get ready to be introduced to an Arancino that packs a big flavoursome punch – Arancino of roasted red pepper, chilli & smoked mozzarella with garlic emulsion.
Scamorza is the aged and dried version of mozzarella. After being shaped by hand, it is tied and hung to dry. Its distinctive flavour and tawny colour comes from a particular woody smoking process.
The scamorza used in our arancini is skillfully made by Caseificio Fratelli Capurso’s dairy in Gioia del Colle in Puglia with small production numbers from local milk keeping quality high for you lucky folk!
Introducing Gaetano
To our regular customers at Cin Cin Hove, Gaetano needs no introduction. Hailing from Sicilian capital Palermo, he has a massive presence on the floor. For those of you yet to say hello, here is an introduction to Gaetano – a true hospitality professional devoted to presenting a dining experience that pairs the highest level of service and fine Italian cuisine.
I love working at CIN CIN, great food, great atmosphere, wonderful customers and I have the pleasure of working with a very close knit team, such a perfect combination. I really like to see the “La Cucina Italiana” comradery in the kitchen but with an enthusiastic British influence.
My favourite dish on the menu? Seriously, how can you make me choose, I have so many favourites! If you are going to make me choose one it would be the Strozzapreti, sweetcorn cacio e pepe with autumn truffle & ricotta salata, paired with a nice glass Planeta Fiano from Sicily, of course.
In my down time I am completing an apprenticeship in hospitality management and on my days off I love to spend some time practicing my favourite sports, climbing and boxing. My favourite music is classic rock, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin see if you can spot them on the restaurant playlist.
Feeling HOT HOT HOT!
This is the weather we have all been waiting for – the sun is shining and that holiday feeling is in the air. This is the perfect time to book a table on our terraces in Hove or Fitzrovia and enjoy some alfresco dining.
Sip a glass of chilled Prosecco whilst soaking up those hot summer vibes!
Dine At Home this weekend
All set to watch the England vs Scotland match this Friday? Or is it Italy vs Wales on Sunday? It’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s coming, Cin Cin’s coming home….
And don’t forget Father’s Day this Sunday!!! So why not celebrate Dad with a feast from your favorite Italian?
Our Dine At Home boxes are hand delivered by our team direct to your door across Sussex; simple to finish, luxurious meals. Leaving you time to relax and enjoy a Peroni or two before the match kicks off.