Sweet Boutique

If you have a craving for something sweet and venture into Sweet Boutique, be prepared to leave half an hour later laden down with all kinds of sugar-​coated beauties.
Like the original branch in Hove, this Sweet Boutique is beautifully designed with floor to ceiling glass and plastic jars filled with colourful and tempting treats. There’s cherry lips, rhubarb and custards and sherbert dips for nostalgics and all kinds of new and delicious flavours for sweet addicts. They also sell cute accessories for bakers and yummy mummies from recipe cards and skull and cross bone cupcake cases to retro playing cards.

I know I’ve said before that sweet shops don’t really excite me… but this place makes me want to take it all back. This is exactly what I imagine a sweet shop to be it isn’t childish, gimmicky or trying to be different, it’s just pure and simple retro-​style sweeties. Just like I used to eat when I was a kid. And the best thing is, you even can buy them by the quarter. Awesome.
Imagine all the sweets you used to eat when you could barely see over the shop counter and thought 50p was a fortune: lemon and strawberry bonbons, rhubarb and custards, pear drops, humbugs, lemon sherbets, sherbet dips… I could go on and on. They even come in little candy-​striped paper bags — innocent, instant happiness!
The original (and slightly smaller) Sweet Boutique is on Church Street in Hove, but it proved so popular that owner Lynne Davis was able to open a second instalment in the fabulously popular Kemp Town. As well as sweets, they also sell a small selection of handmade gifts and cards and do a party-​box service for something a little different to give to your guests. Sweet Boutique is a great idea for a business (I almost wish it had been mine…) and is highly original simply by being traditional.

Many sweet shops advertise their candies as gift ideas, but Sweet Boutique is really the only sweet shop /​gift store. The packaged candy is a mixture of retro and modern; golden nugget gum, candy ‘sticks’ and that dipping powder with the sugar wand were some of the old favourites.
The pick and mix items are all behind the counter, meaning the shopkeeper has to pour things out for you individually. This isn’t my favourite method of picking candy. I like a tiny bit of a bunch of things, and I’d feel guilty about making someone open so many different containers… However, I suppose the set up is their idea.
The gift items include mixed candies in stylish bundles, along with several candy-​shaped non-​edible items: magnets, candles, erasers etc that look like cakes and donuts.
My friend and I went with some almond nougat and sugar mice to help us shop until dinner time.

This is a very cutesy idea, the kind of shop that gives Brighton it’s quirky reputation. It’s basically a take on the traditional sweet shop, so in contrast with pick ‘n mix shops or Cyber Candy in the lanes, you’ve got jars brimming with traditional sweets — mint humbugs, flying saucers, white candy sticks and sherbert lemons to name a few. It’s worth a visit just to admire the prettiness of it all. You’ll also find a selection of nostalgic gift ideas, like parachute men! The owner Lynne Davis also offers other services such as wedding favours if you get in touch. If you live in the area, this is definitely a local business well worth supporting, as clearly a lot of love has gone into putting it all together. It does look pretty quiet whenever I walk past, and somewhat out of place on the high street when it’s not tourist season.

This is basically a giant pick n mix shop, full to the brim with an eclectic selection of sugary goodness. Inside, almost everywhere is covered with a plethora of various bright and enticing sweet products, all of which are reasonably priced, appear tasty, and will make your mouth water. Definitely a great place for those with a sweet tooth.