The Best Cheap Eats in Brighton

The best cheap eats in Brighton are Fatto a Mano for Neapolitan pizza from £9.50, La Choza on Gloucester Road for Mexican street food, MOGUMOGU on London Road for Japanese comfort food, and the pay-as-you-feel cafes of the Real Junk Food Project, where you pay what you can. Add a pastry and a sandwich from the Flour Pot, a £15 bento at Bonsai Plant Kitchen and a pick-and-mix dinner at Shelter Hall on the seafront, and you can eat very well here without wincing at the bill. Prices were checked in October 2026, and Brighton menus creep up like everywhere else, so treat them as a guide.

Fatto a Mano, three branches

Fatto a Mano won Best Value at the 2026 BRAVO awards, and the menu explains why: on the September 2026 Brighton menu a marinara is £9.50, a margherita £11.50 and a diavola £13.50, all proper Neapolitan pizzas big enough to fill you. Campania fries are £5 and dips are £2 each or three for £5. There is a 12.5% discretionary service charge. Branches are at 25 Gloucester Road in North Laine, 77 London Road at Preston Circus and 65 to 67 Church Road in Hove, all open from noon daily.

La Choza, Gloucester Road

La Choza, at 36 Gloucester Road in North Laine (BN1 4AQ), is a bright, loud Mexican shack that came second for value in the 2026 BRAVO vote. Nachos are £10.50 (vegan too), a street food salad is £9, and burritos, tacos, quesadillas and bowls come with your choice of filling from £14. Chips and three dips are £8 for a table to share. Kids under 12 eat for £6.95 including a drink. It is open from 11.30am to 10pm every day.

MOGUMOGU, London Road

MOGUMOGU, at 81 London Road (BN1 4JF), is a small Japanese cafe that won Best International Cuisine at the 2026 BRAVOs and placed fourth for value and fifth for lunch. Think donburi rice bowls, karaage chicken, curry, takoyaki and seasonal udon, then a cat-shaped jelly pudding or Basque cheesecake for afters. Dishes sell out early, and it takes bookings through Instagram.

The Real Junk Food Project

The Real Junk Food Project runs pay-as-you-feel cafes: you give what you can afford, and nobody checks. It won Sustainability Champions at the 2026 BRAVOs and came fifth for value. The Fitz Cafe, at 2 Bristol Road in Kemptown, does lunch from noon to 2pm Tuesday to Friday, and there are weekly sessions at St Luke's Church in Prestonville (Tuesday and Wednesday lunchtimes) and Hollingdean Community Centre (Thursday). Check its locations page before you go, as times change.

The Flour Pot Bakery

The Flour Pot, whose Sydney Street shop is at number 40, came second for best cafe and third for best lunch in the 2026 vote. A sandwich and a pastry here is one of the best-value lunches in North Laine, and the coffee is roasted in the city by its sister company, The Milk Shed.

Bonsai Plant Kitchen, Baker Street

Bonsai Plant Kitchen, at 44 to 45 Baker Street off London Road, is a fully plant-based Japanese-inspired restaurant cooking over charcoal, and it does a £15 bento box. It opens for lunch on Friday and Saturday and for dinner every day, and it came fifth for best restaurant in the city in 2026, so this is a bargain by any measure.

Shelter Hall, Kings Road Arches

Shelter Hall, the food hall on the seafront at Kings Road Arches, has seven kitchens including VIP Pizza, Village Pizza Kitchen, 3Bros Burgers and Temaki Bros sushi. Everyone orders what they like and nobody argues about where to eat. It opens from 11.30am on weekdays and 11am at weekends.

More good-value ideas

Foodilic, at 163 Western Road, is a plant-forward cafe open from 9am daily with an eat-as-much-as-you-like hot and cold buffet at £18.95 a head for groups of five or more. Bincho Yakitori at 63 Preston Street does Japanese grilled skewers and placed seventh for international cuisine; walk-ins are welcome. For sandwiches, Tom's Sandwich Shop and Earl's Sandwiches both made the 2026 BRAVO lunch top ten.

How to eat cheaply in Brighton

Lunch is your friend: several places on our restaurant lists, like Bonsai, do their best deals in the daytime. London Road, Gloucester Road and Preston Street are where a lot of the good-value independents on this list live. And on a sunny day, the cheapest dinner in Brighton is a bag of chips on the beach. Watch the gulls.