East Pier

Lobster and chips from the East Pier Smokehouse
Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Observer

The food is brought up to you in cardboard boxes, though there is a station holding plates and cutlery if you are desperate for such fripperies. There is a whole sea bass, hot-smoked until the skin is the colour of tarnished bronze and the flesh just falling away from its bones, the oils gently running. It is a sometimes bland fish turned into something rich and hefty and regal, all for £12.50. Their own sweet-sour chutney with the crack and burst of whole pink peppercorns closes the deal. There is fresh local lobster – £17.50 per beast – with chips made by someone who cares, and a pungent smoked fish curry full of haddock and mussels and attitude. Even the basmati rice on the other side of the box is cooked precisely.  I run downstairs, to babble enthusiasm and delight and to check on opening times. “Oh, this is the last weekend,” I’m told. Sorry? “Yup. After tomorrow we’re closed until Easter 2016.” I am a crap restaurant critic. Useless. A waste of space. I am telling you about a brilliant place you can’t visit until next year. Shame on me. But I’m doing so partly because you need to know about it, and partly because it puts in stark relief what happened next.