Fire,
tide
and garden
We cook what the tide and the garden give us, over fire, on the day.
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One hearth, twenty raised beds, a marsh a mile south and a boat that lands what it lands. Everything else is a decision we make that morning.
Emberfen is a nineteen-person restaurant in a granary that spent twenty years empty. There is one fire and no gas. The tasting menu is written each morning, the à la carte is its own menu rather than a smaller version of it, and the eight seats at the counter are kept for whoever walks in after eight.
The kitchen, and how it worksSix dishes we would order ourselves
Each of these has its own page: who grows it, how it is cooked, and what to drink with it.
The whole à la carte- Oyster, ember oil, sea buckthorn£9A Saltern Quay rock oyster held ten seconds over the coals, dressed with oil steeped in charred onion and a spoon of sea buckthorn.
- Garden tomatoes, elderflower, buttermilk£13Every tomato from the beds behind the granary, dressed in elderflower vinegar, sitting in cold buttermilk.
- Salt-marsh lamb, aubergine, anchovy£34Shoulder cooked eight hours in the cooling oven, then pressed and finished on the bars. Aubergine burnt to collapse, anchovy through it.
- Roasted celeriac, hazelnut, black garlic£26A whole celeriac roasted in salt dough for four hours, carved at the table, with hazelnut cream and black garlic.
- Monkfish, mussels, saffron & fennel£32Monkfish tail grilled on the bone, mussels opened over the fire, a saffron and fennel broth poured at the table.
- Burnt honey custard, comb£11Honey taken to the edge of bitterness, set into a loose custard, with a piece of the comb it came from.
How to eat here
The tasting menu on most evenings, the carte every service, one shared table on Sundays, and a cellar that will happily argue with all three.
A grain store that the tide still reaches
Built in 1841, shut for twenty years, and reopened with the brick, the oak trusses and the cast-iron hoist exactly as they were found. The tide comes to within thirty feet of the door twice a day, which is charming in June and worth knowing about in February.
- Main roomThirty-eight covers, hearth at the far end
- Fire counterEight seats, level with the top of the fire
- Kiln RoomTwelve around one oak table, private
- The snugSix armchairs, where the last course lands
Rowan Teasdale
If I can't tell you who grew it, I'd rather not put it on the plate.
Rowan cooked in London and Copenhagen for eleven years before taking the lease on a derelict tidal granary and spending eighteen months making it habitable. They cook one menu a day, work the fire themselves on most services, and are usually the person who carries the turbot to your table.
The kitchen, the fire and the garden
Three rooms, twelve to sixty
A restored drying kiln, a first floor with the loading door open over the channel, or the whole granary with nobody else in it.
Private dining and events
What we are thinking about
- Eleven weeks of tomatoesWhy the best dish on the menu is only on the menu for a fifth of the year, and what we do for the other four fifths.
- The shepherd and the tide tableNinety ewes, one mile of sea wall, and a grazing calendar set by the moon rather than the farmer.
- Reading a fireThere is no dial. There is a bed of embers that has been getting colder since eleven in the morning, and everything has to find its moment in it.
This week
| Monday | Closed |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | Dinner6pm–10.30pmlast table 8.45pm |
| Wednesday | Dinner6pm–10.30pmlast table 8.45pm |
| Thursday | Dinner6pm–11pmlast table 9pm |
| Friday | Lunch12pm–2.45pmlast table 1.30pmDinner6pm–11pmlast table 9pm |
| Saturday | Lunch12pm–2.45pmlast table 1.30pmDinner6pm–11pmlast table 9pm |
| Sunday | The Sunday Table12.30pm–5pmlast table 3pm |
A table is the whole point.
Twelve weeks of diary, four ways to eat, and a kitchen that would rather know about your allergies now than on the night.