Webbe's - Sussex by the Season
The Wild Mushroom Restaurant opened in 1998 under the ownership of Paul and Rebecca Webbe. It was our desire to create a restaurant that we would wish to discover and enjoy for ourselves. All things fresh, local and hand foraged when seasonal and all home made.
A small country restaurant on the ground floor of a Sussex converted farmhouse, The Wild Mushroom offering Modern English Cuisine mastered by Paul Webbe in a secluded and intimate dining room.
In 2004 we opened our sister Restaurant in Rye, East Sussex, Webbe's at the Fish Café, offering an a La Carte Restaurant, a Café and a Private Dining Suite serving varied menus, specialising in local fish and seafood. Again our desire to serve fresh local fish from the nearby ports to families and fine diners alike in a vibrant lively cafe, and also the more formal but comfortable surroundings of Webbe's. Now with a very young family, we enjoy eating excellent food, but with a need for a swift stop for food. A niche in the market now fulfilled.
In July 2009 Webbe's Rock-a-Nore opens in Hastings Old Town, offering local fish and steaks in a modern café/brassiere. Serving fresh fish with the shortest journey time to our kitchens. Returning to our roots of Hastings old town, an ever increasing passion for fish and good food and the now larger family has driven our desire to open a modern eatery offering excellent food and tasters, cookery demonstrations and school mornings to meet everyone's growing passion for food and all things fishy.
Our Aim: To serve excellent fresh food, with care and attention to detail, in a professional manner offering the very best of customer service and satisfaction, in a style unique to Webbe's.
Chef Owners Paul & Rebecca Webbe
Our trugful of successful, individual, stylish, modern restaurants, Cookery School and Event Company grew entirely from our passion for the wonderful, wild & natural ingredients of possibly the most exciting triangle of food flavour in the region - the Rye Bay area of Sussex between Rye, Westfield and Hastings Old Town with it's outstanding eco-friendly fishing, woods, farms, gardens and vineyards.
Family Forage
We led the way in foraging and traceability in Sussex over ten years ago when we opened our Wild Mushroom restaurant combining cutting edge, modern, English cuisine with seasonal found, fished and regional ingredients in our farmhouse at Westfield near Rye. Our three small boys have grown up foraging with us. Now, they tell us when they smell the first wild garlic and love being able to recognise the mushrooms Paul collects in wood and field.
Fish, Festivals & Fleets
True to our locality (Rebecca's father, Harry, sold fish from the fleets at Hastings & Rye) we still live in the farmhouse over Webbe's Wild Mushroom, have created Webbe's Fish Café & Restaurant in Rye and delight in championing the renowned local scallops and fish varieties at the Rye Bay Scallop Festival and Hasting Seafood Festival as well as at the restaurants.
| Hot News - New Adventure!
Our newest venture launched this summer near the beach in the fishing quarter of Hastings Old Town, between the smugglers caves and the historic fishermans' net huts. In sight of the small fishing boats that supply us we'll open a fish restaurant which like each of our others will have it's own distinctive character and special features. Rick Stein gets his prized Gurnard from here, the French and the Spanish, knowing a good thing, take much of the local mussel and scallop catch from here too so we'd like to let more people eat them at their source!
Learn How It's Done
We love to share the knowledge we've gained and the pleasure of cooking local food at source at our School. We've had the heads of supermarket chains coming to appreciate the ingredients and learn to cook to discover that certain something that you can't get on a national scale - the marriage of regional food, water, wine, air and landscape in the right season. We lead food hunts, cookery demonstrations, hands-on days, corporate team building events and all manner of specialist courses.
OUR FISH POLICY
We endeavour to purchase as much local produce as we can from the ports of Hastings and Rye. We buy from sustainable sources and can trace our fish back to the exact boat that landed it.
We never buy endangered species or fish in its breeding season.
We've been using lesser-known species of non-endangered fish for many years, such as gurnard, pollack and razor clams. They benefit from plentiful stock levels, and by using these fish this takes pressure off the depleted stocks of endangered fish.
All our farmed fish comes from certified organic farms with exemplary standards of welfare, where the use of synthetic pesticides and drugs is banned. We will only serve organically farmed salmon and trout, since wild stocks are severely depleted.
We are working with the MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) for up to date information and are hoping soon to be awarded MSC accreditation.
Hastings Stade has Europe's biggest fleet of beach-launched fishing boats. The boats have to be hauled out of the sea after each trip, which stops them being more than about ten metres long. This means that they can only carry small amounts of gear and travel just a few miles. As a result the fleet has always fished in an ecologically sound way and for shorter periods of time. The Stade has a vibrant working community that enjoys great traditions for many generations. It also represents the perfect combination of an historically protected area being ecologically utilised by a contemporary working force. In fact, there are not many places in the world today such as the Stade, where you can find a driving community working in a protected area of great historical relevance, one that still keeps its original look, its old traditions, standards and original atmosphere.
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