Bill’s, Chichester

I had a few errands to run in Chichester, West Sussex so I did a little shopping and met one of my cycle friends for lunch as I would not be seeing her for a few weeks due to both of us having cycling holidays coming up. She was to do a little cycle touring up to Norfolk and I was off to France to cycle up a mountain – gulp! There are lots of eateries in Chichester popping up and Linda suggested having lunch at a new restaurant called ‘Bill’s’. I’d not seen or heard of Bill’s but Helen knew about the restaurant as there are several in London and dotted around the country.

Bill’s is situated in the historic Butter Market, which was designed by John Nash and opened in 1808 as a food and produce market. The restaurant is upstairs and is a sort of ‘horseshoe shape’, bright and fresh looking with dried peppers and other assorted dried items strung around with soft music playing in the background. We were seated by a part of the wall where you could look down at the entrance to the Butter Market with a glass wall and square iron grids with little chandeliers. This sounds odd but it looked fine, it just made it difficult to see who was seated across the other side of the restaurant, namely my friend Linda! We were both seated in different parts of the restaurant both waiting for each other until a kindly waiter put two and two together.

The service was good and very friendly. The menu has plenty of items to choose from and there were four things I liked the sound of, but I thought I’d be brave and try something different. I decided upon Halloumi & Hummus which was a very fresh seeded bun, spread with hummus, topped with lettuce , a slice of grilled halloumi, a large piece of roasted red pepper and a little sweet chilli sauce. This was served with skinny french fries. It was really delicious and everything tasted extremely fresh.

For dessert I again found it difficult to choose as there were so many lovely sounding dishes such as Eton Mess which is one of my favourites, lemon meringue pie cheesecake ‘in a glass’ and raspberry & white chocolate crème brûlée. My mouth is watering as I type this, wishing I was back at Bill’s right this very moment.

I settled for warm pecan pie & malted banana ice-cream. It was nice and warm and not too hot, loaded with half pecans and dusted with a little icing sugar and garnished with a sprig of mint. Very tasty. The ice-cream tasted superb too.

This was all washed down with a glass of iced tap water from the jug on our table and a glass of peachy Leduc voignier.

On the table was a leaflet containing a list of kitchen cupboard goodies such as olives, chutneys, jams, oils, coffee, cookies, sweets and lots more. You can tick off which items you would like to purchase from the restaurant and these are added to your bill.

I was impressed by Bill’s and will definitely be paying them another visit soon. If you’ve been to Bill’s- let us know which dessert you opted for – we’d love to hear whether the others are just as tasty!

Living life, loving cake

A x