Cycling to the World's End

BBQ Shack at the World's End, 60-61 London Rd, Brighton

Enough BBQ to kill a horse and sufficient beer to drown a rat king: £20 each

With all the meat love going around London this summer, I find it surprising that excellent examples of the flame-grilled genre are still hard, if not almost impossible to find. Perhaps our fabled fondness for the burned sausage at our own outdoor feasts is impeding an inevitable BBQ revolution. Many a foodie has lamented the lack of BBQ perfection in London. I had reluctantly concluded that only a trip across the Atlantic would satisfy this hunger, until I read an article that dared me to hope. A Texas-trained ex-chef-turned-BBQ aficionado? Only 50 miles from London? Get me to Brighton.

To get the most out of a BBQ joint, one needs the stretchiest of elasticated waistbands and the sort of prehistoric appetite that enabled our ancestors to tackle the odd woolly mammoth. The first of these is easy, the second sometimes needs a little work. A hangover might do it but can be an unreliable way to stoke the fires of hunger - all too often it ends in queasy nausea. A long bike ride, by contrast, is your unfailing ally in the search for enhanced eating. Whilst it might take a little more physical input, the food capacity dividends can be epic: particularly if Ditchling Beacon gets between you and your feast.

Sitting at the top of the beacon in the rain, there was a moment when I questioned the wisdom of the outing. Could any food be good enough to justify leaving the house at 8am on Saturday to cycle thirty-five miles in the sweaty summer drizzle? Doubt plagued me as we free-wheeled the last miles back down the hill, into the outer suburbs of Brighton and on to one of the less salubrious parts of town. The World's End is near the station, rather than the seafront, on a road the boasts a head shop and a sex shop within striking distance. Away from the shiny, biodynamic Brighton we all know and love, this was more slightly grubby, British seaside town territory. It is not a smart pub, nor should it be. It's a proper boozer with regulars, televised rugby and plates of honest solid cooking to take away the pain of thirty-five miles on the bike.

Grateful for our prodigious hunger, we ordered as much of the menu as would fit on our table. Several sandwiches, chicken and ribs were nestled in with a great bowl of chips and some dainty dishes of beans, rice and slaw. Doubt evaporated. Any journey, no matter how arduous or soggy, would be justified in the face of this food. The chicken, burnished with spices and cooked low and slow, was a masterpiece of tender, juicy flesh. Ribs were wonderfully smoky and sticky with a sauce that provided some sweetness without being cloying. The pulled pork was tender and hinted of smoke, served with an apple BBQ sauce to cut through the wonderful fat. The armadillo egg was surprisingly successful: the combination of crispy bacon, spicy sausage, cheese and pepper working better than we thought it would. It disappeared almost immediately.

However, not everything worked quite so well. The beef brisket was dry, even with its spicy chipotle sauce. The sides ranged from an excellent coleslaw to some uninspiring chips. We hardly cared that the fries weren't the best: why fill up on starch when there is meat to be had? More disappointing was the lack of bean brilliance. We all agreed that the meaty, treacly variant of BBQ beans would be a better choice than the slightly insipid pinto beans here.

So, is Mr Rayner correct? Has a UK BBQ haven finally been found? I'm inclined to think he is, and it has. Whilst the cooking isn't universally perfect, the most important things (the ribs, of course) are spot on and the setting matches the informal, slightly macho food. Lucky old Brighton.