We've been writing this menu for eleven years now, and every season I sit down at the long table in the back of the kitchen and try to think about what I actually want to cook for people for the next three months. Not what is fashionable, not what the magazines are saying, but what tastes right when I think about it on a quiet afternoon in March.
This autumn, that meant going back to apples. Pink ladies from the Wandin orchards, the same farmer we've used since 2018. He picks them in a particular order — the brightest red ones first, the slightly smaller ones for braising, the late-season fruit for the tarts. We don't get to choose; we get what he sends.
The duck took most of a year to get right. We tried six different cures, three different braising liquids, and went through about forty ducks before the version on this menu emerged. It's not complicated. It's just a duck leg, very slowly cooked in its own fat with bay and juniper, served with the same apples I just wrote about.
There's one new fermentation — a koji-cured lamb belly that's been hanging in the cold room since February. I won't pretend it's traditional, but it works on the plate and that, in the end, is the only test that matters.
We hope you'll come and eat with us. The room is small, the music is quiet, and the kitchen is one short flight of stairs from the dining room — so if you have a question, you can usually find one of us behind the pass.