Five of the best dog-friendly places to eat in Brighton and Hove

At the Basketmakers Arms, we can spend part of lunch reading tobacco tins. At the Ginger Pig, the serious business is deciding whether a duck-fat hash brown constitutes a sensible prelude to a beef-shin pie. Down on the beach, fish comes folded into a taco, and there is considerably more sea than table in the view. Brighton and Hove offer several quite different answers to the question of where to eat with a dog. Choosing between them takes more thought than finding a water bowl.

A meal worth taking time over, with the dog beside us, is the aim: whether that means seafood in a small North Laine pub or a Sunday kitchen that puts pork cheek and black pudding beside its roast. The choice depends partly on the dog. An easy-going dog will have more options than one troubled by close quarters or live music, and a bar reservation in Hove is a different proposition from gambling on a beachfront table.

1. The Basketmakers Arms

12 Gloucester Road, Brighton, BN1 4AD.

We arrive with the firm intention of having lunch and are briefly distracted by the walls. Old metal signs and tobacco tins cover the Basketmakers; tucked inside the tins are messages left by customers. It is an unusually participatory form of pub decoration. Here, the interesting part may be somebody else's folded piece of paper. We leave other people's correspondence where it belongs and take our place in the room, dog close beside the chair.

The setting is small enough to make that last detail important. This is a two-room corner pub, with low ceilings, fixed seating and very little incentive to pass through without stopping. Its old appearance is not all of one date. The layout goes back at least to 1959; much of the counter and panelling is probably post-war, with modest alterations in 1980. The fixed seating and counter still determine how we fit into the room. A large dog, however, occupies more of that arrangement than the word “welcome” admits. Book a food table and explain the space needed. Dogs stay on leads and on the floor; water bowls are available, and treats are usually to hand.

Before deciding on pie, there is the seafood blackboard to read. Head chef Katie chooses fish from local fleets, so a fixed recommendation would miss part of the point. The printed menu gives a useful indication of her approach. Buttermilk squid, £10, has dashi, pickled samphire, tartare sauce and charred lime: a Japanese stock and a familiar British condiment brought to the same seaside plate. Pickled samphire gives the squid an acidic accompaniment as well as a coastal one. We choose it, then consider the £18 fish and chips and the day's £18 pie, which comes with greens, gravy and a choice of mash. Confit leek and chive sounds a particularly good companion to a meat filling.

There is a second, less marine argument for staying: Branston pickle croquettes with cheese sauce. At £8, they turn the contents of an extremely British sandwich into something we can eat with a fork and a pint. It is an appealing use of the pickle-and-cheese combination. We would order them to share over the first drink, especially if the blackboard has persuaded us to save our main-course appetite for fish.

The bank of handpumps deserves attention before the wine list. Fuller’s London Pride and ESB, Gales HSB and changing choices give a cask drinker considerable scope; ESB is 5.5%, which is worth remembering if lunch forms the middle of a long walk. We start with a half. With the dog tucked clear of passing feet, this is the Brighton pub lunch we want when the prospect of eating outside has lost its appeal. Come early if crowded rooms make the dog restless. Same-day food bookings need a phone call, and reservations are for diners.

2. The Ginger Pig

3 Hove Street, Hove, BN3 2TR.

By the time we turn off the seafront into Hove Street, a proper lunch has become more appealing than another stretch of promenade. The Ginger Pig occupies an early twentieth-century inn a short walk from the water. We have booked in the bar and mentioned the dog: that is the part of the building where dogs are allowed. The small terrace is for drinks, so it should not be treated as a fallback dining room. This is a reservation worth getting right, particularly if the walk has been planned around the meal.

Chef Ben McKellar and his wife and business partner, Pamela, began the Gingerman group in 1998. The Pig belongs to that long-running local enterprise, and its menu makes a persuasive case for the less expensive cuts. A duck appears as leg ragù under a fried duck egg; beef shin goes into a pie with blue cheese; pork belly shares a plate with braised cheek. The accompaniments matter: an egg adds richness to the duck, blue cheese a sharper edge to the beef. We read on with a growing suspicion that choosing a light lunch will require an act of will.

Leek and Caerphilly croquettes, £6, with brown sauce begin our meal. Caerphilly, the crumbly Welsh cheese, brings an acidic edge to the sweet leek. Then comes the £21 beef-shin and blue-cheese pie with mash. There is no elaborate side order to negotiate before it becomes a meal. For a fish eater, the £26 roasted cod with cauliflower, clementine and hazelnut brown butter is the more intriguing alternative. The citrus makes sense against the nuts and butter; it is also a welcome change from the automatic squeeze of lemon. We choose the pie, with the longer walk still ahead.

The bar is a reason to reserve here even without a dog. We order a £13 Negroni, the straightforward version made with Beefeater, Campari and Antica Formula vermouth, then consider the Apple Pie Old Fashioned, whose bourbon is infused with apple pie and combined with vanilla and walnut bitters. The wine choices include Ridgeview's Sussex sparkling wine and an alcohol-free sparkling tea from REAL. Allow for the discretionary 12.5% service charge and the separate discretionary £1 charity donation when working out the bill.

There is a less expansive route through the kitchen. The weekday set lunch offers two courses for £22 or three for £26, with dishes changing, and merits consideration before committing to the à la carte order. Tell the restaurant that you want to eat from it when arranging the dog-friendly bar table. On the pudding menu, a £9 dark-chocolate torte with passionfruit sorbet has greater appeal to us after a substantial main than another helping of cream. We choose the torte, leaving the longer return along the seafront until afterwards.

3. The Lion & Lobster

24 Sillwood Street, Brighton, BN1 2PS.

The roast menu gives us reason to look twice. There is a conventional Sunday lunch, then a separate set of “deluxe” roasts for which we must book. Here, the extra money buys identifiable things. The £22.50 pork version combines fennel-flavoured porchetta with pork-cheek rillette, puffed pork skin, a pork-and-black-pudding bonbon and burnt apple and quince purée. The standard porchetta is £19. For £3.50 more, we can follow the pig through several different cuts and preparations. That is a more convincing inducement than an extra potato.

The dog is on the booking, and we arrive hungry enough to consider the deluxe menu. The Lion & Lobster has the attraction, and some of the inconvenience, of a pub that spreads through three floors. A pub room, Regency restaurant and rooftop terrace provide distinct settings, but a promise that dogs are welcome should not be mistaken for a guarantee that every table will work. Explain the dog's size and any difficulty with stairs when booking. Human access has a firmer limitation: every entrance involves steps and narrow doors, and there is no wheelchair access or accessible loo. Anyone who needs those facilities should choose elsewhere.

At the table, we alternate forkfuls of pork with the apple and quince, then try the black-pudding bonbon. Porchetta is rolled, seasoned roast pork; the fennel is the Italian influence on a plate that also finds room for a Yorkshire pudding. The accompaniments are substantial: roast potatoes, carrot and parsnip, squash purée, cavolo nero, and leeks with brown butter and miso. This is a Sunday lunch for somebody interested in the trimmings as well as the meat. It is less suitable for the diner who wants everything plainly cooked and kept apart. We would resist ordering extra sides until the roast has reached the table.

A glass of the Chilean Adobe Reserva Pinot Noir, £8.25 for 175ml, is our choice. There are weightier reds on the list, but Pinot is the direction we prefer with pork, fennel and fruit; a small glass is also available. The alcohol-free Elderflower Nollins, £5, gives the non-drinker something to consider beyond a cola. Sunday can develop into a longer visit here, with live jazz from the Charlie Miller Trio. Check the music arrangements before taking a sound-sensitive dog, and ask for a table away from it if that is what the dog needs. A late lunch with jazz may be our idea of an agreeable afternoon; it need not be the dog’s.

On another day, the kitchen's range matters more than the roast. Lobster bisque with a Parmesan crisp is £8; mushroom orzotto comes with king oyster mushroom, Parmesan and lemon for £17. A £19.50 porchetta main goes in another direction, with hispi cabbage, jalapeño crema, chorizo, smoked almond and hot honey. It is worth reading those accompaniments before ordering: this is cooking that likes to add spice, sweetness and savoury richness. Table service brings a discretionary 12.5% charge, so our deluxe pork and glass of Pinot would be about £34.60 with that included. We would pay it for the range of preparations on the roast plate, provided we had secured a table where the dog could settle comfortably through lunch.

4. Lucky Beach Café

183 Kings Road Arches, Brighton, BN1 1NB.

Along the lower seafront, the dog on a lead, we approach Lucky Beach and choose a table nearer the arches than the open deck. The large orange parasols give this part of the seating some shelter; further out, the sea occupies almost the whole view. On a still day, the exposed seats have the greater pull. With a dog beside us, we are more interested in shade and a place to lie without being stepped over. Dogs are welcome indoors as well, which makes Lucky Beach a possibility beyond the months in which eating outside seems an obviously good idea.

The tide and the dog timetable are separate considerations. Dogs must stay on leads on the promenade throughout the year. Between 1 May and 30 September, beach access is restricted to designated dog-friendly stretches; the café's welcome does not extend the dog's access to the shingle in front of it. From 1 October to 30 April, all Brighton and Hove beaches admit dogs.

Fish tacos draw us to this part of the menu. Battered white fish comes with lime crema, guacamole, slaw and pineapple salsa, a combination in which acidity and fruit have plenty to do. We lift one carefully; this is food to eat over the plate. The loaded crab fries offer a more extravagant accompaniment, combining white and brown crab meat with a tomato-and-chilli sauce. Brown crab meat brings a depth that a scattering of white flakes alone would not supply. We would share the tacos and crab fries between two, adding another plate if appetite required it. If appetites are large, fish and chips and organic beef burgers remain substantial alternatives.

The coffee merits some of the attention normally monopolised by the view. Lucky Beach belongs to the same business as Redroaster, whose coffee is roasted in Brighton. It gives us a reason to return for breakfast as well as fish. Crab Benedict is the seaside choice; the breakfast menu has also included Berlin eggs with sumac yoghurt, greens and chilli butter. Sumac is a tart, reddish spice, and with the yoghurt it gives the eggs a sharper setting than hollandaise. Breakfast finishes at 11.45am, so a leisurely start at home changes what we will find to eat.

For lunch, we prefer a beer to a cocktail with the fish tacos; Freedom lager is among the current choices. The setting calls for an unhurried meal, but it is exposed to the practical difficulties of a popular seafront. Walk-in tables, passing people and wind all matter more when the dog is already tired. We would come before the busiest lunch period, choose the sheltered seating and keep the first order simple. For us, the attraction is the combination of crab, a cold beer and a table close enough to the beach to keep watching it through lunch.

5. Café Coho, Ship Street

53 Ship Street, Brighton, BN1 1AF.

Breakfast time finds us and the dog on Ship Street, looking beyond Coho's front counter for somewhere to sit. Dogs can join us in the rear rooms and upstairs, as well as outside. That distinction makes this branch particularly useful when the pavement tables are unappealing: a coffee stop need not involve huddling over a cup while breakfast cools in the wind. With a dog that cannot manage stairs, ask for a suitable table at the rear. Coho works on a walk-in basis, so the most convenient seat is not something we can secure in advance.

Inside, exposed brick and reclaimed timber occupy a Grade II-listed building spread over three floors. The seats came from Victorian churches. We make room for our coats, then leave one of us with the dog while the other orders at the bar. That is the useful arrangement here, especially at a busy time; waiting for someone to take the order would be a slow way to discover how the café operates. We order Union coffee and turn to the eggs, which receive rather more attention on this menu than the usual choice between a muffin and toast.

The Turkish eggs are our preference: poached eggs with spinach, yoghurt, chilli butter, spring onion, coriander and flatbread. We tear the bread and use it to gather the yolk and yoghurt. The yoghurt adds acidity to the eggs; the chilli butter supplies heat and richness. For anyone inclined to order eggs Benedict out of habit, this is the dish we would suggest trying. The plant-based toast deserves consideration too. Avocado, edamame and garden peas share the topping, with dairy-free feta, pomegranate and seeds. The beans and peas give it substance; the pomegranate contributes both fruit and acidity.

The sweet choice is much less restrained. French toast comes with smoked bacon, caramelised banana, maple mascarpone, berry compote, almond and coconut. We would choose it as breakfast in its own right, rather than assume it is a small sweet finish after the eggs. Coho's published brunch prices place the Turkish eggs and the avocado, pea and edamame dish at £12 each, with French toast at £12.75. Those are useful guide prices; check the menu at the counter before ordering. The changing queue and walk-in seating make this a better stop with time in hand than a tightly scheduled meal before a train.

One other line on the menu deserves reading. “Invisible toast” is a £2.50 donation to the Clock Tower Sanctuary, which supports young people experiencing homelessness in Brighton and Hove; Coho matches it to make £5. We can add it when we order, alongside an entirely visible breakfast. Indoor space for the dog makes this branch useful throughout the year; the egg dish is what persuades us to stay for a meal. Our choice is the Turkish eggs, a flat white and enough time to eat before taking the dog back into the narrow streets.