FOOD | Purezza, Brighton

As mentioned in my previous post, during our visit to Brighton, my boyfriend and I made sure we stopped at Purezza for dinner.

I’d heard plenty of times that Brighton is great for vegan food (and it is!) and Purezza was one place I constantly heard great things about; in fact it was one of the places I was most excited to visit in Brighton.

Purezza was actually the UK’s first plant based Italian restaurant and offers raw food as well as pizzas in a pizza wood fire and other food. It was also the first vegan pizzeria in the UK when it was founded back in 2015. The restaurant is based just a short walk away from the seafront and is a quaint little place.

We were surprised at how small it was but this is by no means a bad thing. We were welcomed immediately upon arriving and found the place to offer a really relaxed atmosphere. Staff were friendly and easy to talk to, as well as more than helpful.

We ordered so much food; for starters we had garlic bread (with delicious melted cheese! It’s always a win in our books when we find somewhere that offers vegan cheese…), focaccia strips with a dip selection (hummus, pesto and caramelised beet/onion), and cheesy bites. It was all ever so delicious, and the caramelised beet/onion dip was surprisingly tasty.

For mains, we each went for a pizza. I chose the Portobello Road, which offered toppings such as mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, rocket salad and a mushroom sauce, whereas Vincent went for the ‘meaty’ Fumosa: chestnut mushrooms, smoked beet & fried tofu, topped with BBQ sauce. Yum yum.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the toppings such as smoked beet and sundried tomato looked like meat at first glance and with so much packed onto each pizza, we barely noticed any lack of meat. Much like when I eat my fake sausages, I find it’s all to do with the presentation; if it looks like meat then you rarely notice the difference.

I tried only a bit of my boyfriends pizza but mine was delicious. It was tasty and filling and had a whole lot of flavour. We often do mushroom pizza at home, but I’d never thought of topping it with sundried tomatoes. I can see us re-creating this pizza at home.

Also, I have to give a shout out to the menu. With pizza names like Cheesus, Popeye and Pesto Manifesto, it gave the establishment a quirky and fun twist which I loved. We kind of want to go back and try each pizza one by one…

We couldn’t finish our food so took some of our pizzas to go, as well as some dessert Tiramisu and a brownie. I actually never got round to trying these in the end but I was assured by my boyfriend that they were delicious.

Everything was super affordable and I can’t tell you how great it was to binge on delicious food that seemed unhealthy in thought but was actually really good for us.

If you’re ever in the Brighton area, I’d definitely recommend popping to Purezza for some delicious vegan food.