The Ember Room

The House

A room built around one fire, and everything that answers to it

The Ember Room began as a coal cellar under a printer's yard. In 1954 a cook named Ada Vance knocked out the back wall, laid a bed of firebrick, and started serving forty covers a night to typesetters coming off the late shift.

Seventy years on, the hearth is the same width it always was — one metre, one metre only — which is why we still seat twenty and never twenty-one. Everything on the menu passes over that fire: the bread, the leeks, the milk for the ice cream. Nothing is finished in a pan we could have used at home.

We do not take walk-ins after seven. We do not have a bar you can wait at. What we have is a small door, a warm room, and a book that opens two weeks ahead at nine in the morning.

The Table

Tonight's board, written at four, cooked by six

One menu, five courses, no substitutions we can't make honestly. Prices include the fire, the bread and the service.

• Burnt leek, cultured cream, hazelnut Leeks buried in the embers overnight, peeled at the pass £11
• Hearth bread & smoked butter Sourdough from a starter kept alive since 1978 £6
• Whole plaice, brown butter, sea beet Landed at Brixham, on the grill within the day £29
• Ash-roast celeriac, cider, black garlic The vegetable course, and the one we're proudest of £24
• Ember milk ice, burnt honey Milk scalded over coals until it tastes of smoke £9

The Cellar

Forty bottles, chosen for smoke and acid

The list is short on purpose. Anything that can't stand up to a fire has no business down here.

Corkage £20 per bottle, waived on Tuesdays for anything older than the room.

The Hours

When the fire is lit

The hearth is lit at half past three every service day. If you walk past and see smoke over the yard, that's us.

Reserve

Twenty seats, two weeks ahead

Leave your details and we'll write back the same evening. Larger parties should telephone the room directly.