Furna

A Room That Invites Attention

The address on New Road places Furna within a short walk of the Royal Pavilion, in the kind of central Brighton stretch where the city's older institutional buildings give way to smaller, more considered spaces. Step inside and the room reads as deliberate without being laboured: parquet floors, mirrors, modernist tables and chairs in an arrangement that keeps the 28 seats feeling purposeful rather than packed. The kitchen is fully open, and the chefs who plate there are also the ones who bring food to the table — a format that compresses the usual distance between production and service, and that tends to produce a different quality of conversation about what you're eating.

Brighton's modern restaurant scene has developed a clear upper tier over the past decade, with a cluster of technically serious kitchens operating at a remove from the city's more casual coastal dining. Furna sits in that tier. The room's atmosphere is relaxed and unhurried in a way that serious cooking in the UK sometimes fails to be — there is none of the ceremonial stiffness that can accompany tasting menus at comparable price points elsewhere. At [L'Enclume in Cartmel](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/restaurants/lenclume-cartmel-restaurant) or [The Ledbury in London](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/restaurants/the-ledbury-london-restaurant), that formality is part of the proposition; Furna's proposition is the opposite.

What the Kitchen Is Doing

The cooking is rooted in seasonal British produce with a fluency in international technique that never tips into affectation. Dishes from the record illustrate the register well: a raw Orkney scallop arrives with ponzu, yuzu, preserved rhubarb, a horseradish and elderflower sorbet, and peppery marigold leaves , a construction that moves across acidity, heat, and floral notes without losing coherence. Salt-aged Devon duck, brushed with burnt honey and paired with morels and a sauce built from duck offcuts, hazelnut, and Kampot pepper, shows the kitchen's commitment to using the full animal and to building depth through technique rather than luxury ingredients alone.

Seasonality is not decorative here. A dish of confit Jersey Royals with salted gooseberries, straw potato fries, smoked eel, and Exmoor caviar takes an ingredient most kitchens treat as a supporting player and makes it the structural centre of a course. That kind of editorial confidence , deciding that the potato is the story , is what separates cooking with a point of view from cooking that is merely accomplished. The line-caught sea bass with fat asparagus, courgette, pea purée, and a sauce of smoked sea bass bones, smoked butter, miso, and mirin demonstrates a similar logic: the fish is sourced with care, the sauce is built from the bones rather than bought in, and the result has the density of flavour that only that kind of preparation produces.

Even the bread course carries weight. A feather-light, tear-and-share brown butter-glazed Parker House roll served with wild-garlic butter is the kind of detail that signals a kitchen thinking at every scale, not just on the headline courses. A duck liver parfait topped with yuzu is velvety and citrussy in a way that resets the palate without feeling like an interruption. Across all of this, the Selim pepper meringue with rhubarb, buckwheat crumble, and rhubarb granita closes the meal with marshmallow softness and a controlled tartness that does not oversell the ending.

Critics have noted that the occasional course tries to carry too many competing flavours and textures simultaneously , a fair observation at a table where the kitchen's ambition sometimes outruns its editing. But the overall record across Furna's reports is consistent enough that isolated misfires read as the cost of genuine creative risk rather than structural weakness.

Format, Pricing, and How the Room Works

Three formats run concurrently, which is relatively unusual for a room of this size. The set lunch at £35 per person gives access to the kitchen's logic at a price point that few comparable restaurants in the South East match , for context, set lunches at venues like [The Fat Duck in Bray](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/restaurants/the-fat-duck-bray-restaurant) or [Moor Hall in Aughton](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/restaurants/moor-hall-aughton-restaurant) operate at a considerable premium. The à la carte sits in the middle register and allows for a more selective approach. The eight-course chef's selection at £85 per person represents the full arc of the kitchen's seasonal thinking and, at that price, positions Furna well below the national average for equivalent tasting-menu formats at Michelin-recognised addresses.

The drinks list won Drinks List of the Year in 2024, a credential that suggests the wine and beverage program is taken as seriously as the food. The list is described as international with a lean toward local and natural pours , a direction consistent with the cooking's ethos of traceable sourcing. For a room of 28 seats, that kind of drinks program depth is a meaningful addition to the proposition rather than an afterthought.

Within Brighton's dining geography, Furna occupies a different register from the city's more accessible modern restaurants. [Embers](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/restaurants/embers-brighton-and-hove-restaurant) and [Flint House](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/restaurants/flint-house-brighton-and-hove-restaurant) operate in overlapping territory, while [The Set](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/restaurants/the-set-brighton-and-hove-restaurant) and [Gingerman](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/restaurants/gingerman-brighton-and-hove-restaurant) , the latter being among the kitchens where the chef here built his two decades of pre-solo experience , represent different points on the city's modern British spectrum. [Amari](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/restaurants/amari-brighton-and-hove-restaurant) operates in a different category altogether. The broader Brighton and Hove picture is covered in [our full Brighton and Hove restaurants guide](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/restaurants/brighton-and-hove), with [hotels](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/hotels/brighton-and-hove), [bars](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/bars/brighton-and-hove), [wineries](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/wineries/brighton-and-hove), and [experiences](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/experiences/brighton-and-hove) covered in separate guides.

Michelin Recognition and What It Signals

Consecutive Michelin Plates in 2024 and 2025 place Furna in the acknowledged tier of cooking that Michelin considers worthy of specific attention without yet awarding a star. At that level, the Plate signals consistent quality and seriousness of intent. It is the same designation held by many restaurants that later receive starred recognition, and at venues like [Gidleigh Park in Chagford](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/restaurants/gidleigh-park-chagford-restaurant) or [Hand and Flowers in Marlow](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/restaurants/hand-and-flowers-marlow-restaurant), the pathway from recognised-but-unstarred to starred was gradual. Whether Furna moves in that direction depends on factors outside the kitchen's control, but the current recognition, combined with the Drinks List of the Year award for 2024 and a Google rating of 4.9 across 366 reviews, suggests a room operating with consistency at this level.

For reference, the tasting-menu format at this price point aligns Furna more closely with the focused, chef-led small-room model seen internationally at places like [Frantzén in Stockholm](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/restaurants/frantzn-stockholm-restaurant) or [FZN by Björn Frantzén in Dubai](https://www.enprimeurclub.com/restaurants/fzn-by-bjrn-frantzn-dubai-restaurant) than with the large-format tasting-menu destination. The scale is the point: 28 seats means the kitchen can control every plate, and the open format means the people cooking the food are also the people explaining it.

Planning a Visit

Furna is at 6 New Road, Brighton BN1 1UF, within easy walking distance of Brighton railway station and immediately adjacent to the Royal Pavilion Gardens. The set lunch at £35 per person is the most accessible entry point and gives a grounded view of the kitchen's seasonal priorities. The eight-course chef's selection at £85 per person delivers the full sequence. Given the 28-seat capacity, reservations should be made in advance, particularly for evening sittings and the chef's selection format. The price range sits at the £££ tier, which in Brighton's context represents serious-restaurant pricing without the London premium that applies at comparable addresses.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the must-try dish at Furna?

The honest answer is that the menu changes with the season, which is the point. Based on documented reports, the eight-course chef's selection at £85 per person is where the kitchen's full range is visible , dishes like the raw Orkney scallop with ponzu and yuzu, the salt-aged Devon duck with burnt honey and Kampot pepper, and the Selim pepper meringue have all drawn specific praise in published accounts. The confit Jersey Royals course, built around smoked eel and Exmoor caviar, has been singled out as a demonstration of the kitchen's ability to make a humble ingredient carry a course. If the set lunch is the visit, it still draws on the same sourcing and technique , the format is compressed, not diluted. Furna holds Michelin Plates for both 2024 and 2025 and a Drinks List of the Year award for 2024, credentials that apply across all three formats.