Euan MacDonald and Mel Culross launch No No Please on Brighton’s Preston Street
Located on the increasingly vibrant Preston Street just up from the West Pier and Brighton i360, No No Please offers a tight menu of mainly small bites with just one dish breaking the £10 mark alongside a drinks menu that is focused on pre-batched cocktails.
The 58-cover site is the pair’s debut restaurant project but both have a good understanding of the hospitality landscape.
The founder of management, communication, and training consultancy Tenboss, MacDonald is one of the founders of Brighton’s Best restaurant awards.
Culross has also worked in the consultancy space but has also held senior roles at a number of hospitality ventures, most recently working on the guest liaison team at Hampshire’s Heckfield Place.
Bookie Mitchell - the Thai-born chef behind successful Thai kitchen brand Namo Eat - is No No Please’s executive chef as well as being an investor and co-owner working one day a week on menu development and execution.
The head chef at No No Please is Liam Thorpe, whose Brighton CV includes med. and Espina. He was most recently a junior sous chef at Mayfair club Annabel’s (now closed) Mexican restaurant.
The menu includes bang bang chicken salad; glazed tofu with go-chu sauce and sriracha pearls; sesame prawn toast with salted egg yolk; BBQ prawns with spiced butter; and pork, garlic and basil stir-fry with ‘a staggering amount of chillies’.
With No No Please positioned as a drinks-led venue that will be open late into the evening, a limited menu will be soon be available after the main kitchen closes offering a handful of dishes that can easily be prepared by the front of house team.
Created by Jack Williams from Brighton’s Golden Pineapple, cocktails include Supagrass (Tequila, vermouth, lemongrass and salted coconut); Hits From The Bong (rum, aloe vera, mint and coriander); and Banana Old Fashioned (Discarded rum, bitters, velvet falernum).
The Mid Century-inspired interior has been designed by MacDonald and Culross with input from interiors designer Philippa Allam.
Design details include café curtains, a feature wall covered in old Punch magazine covers, a mix of regular chairs and tables alongside lounge-style furniture and a few subtle nods to the South East Asian-inspired menu including some blown up vintage Hong Kong stamps.
“The name is inspired by a family thing that means you commit to what you are doing and go all in,” MacDonald explains. “We’re having a lot of fun with the place already. The intention is for No No Please to be a lounge-style venue."
"We are already seeing people gravitate to our more relaxed seating areas and getting stuck in for the night, so much so that we’re looking at putting more sofas and armchairs in. For the moment we are walk-in only but we’re talking to our guests about what works best for them and will look to review this soon.”
