Welcome to Sorrel
We do not know what is for dinner until the vans have been.
Sorrel is a seasonal restaurant in an old seed merchant’s on Bridge Street. Ruth Kell decides most of the menu by deciding what to plant; the Brixham boats decide the rest. What follows is not a sample. It is what is actually on tonight.
Head chef
The season writes the menu. We only cook it.
Signature dishes
A taste of Sorrel
Four dishes that have earned a permanent place, whatever the season does to the rest of the carte. Each one comes from a grower or a boat we know by name.
View menu
On tonight
Dinner
À la carte. The list changes when the growers tell us it has to, which is more often than we would like and exactly as often as it should.
Wednesday to Saturday, 6 until 9.30
Snacks
Two or three each, before anything else arrives.
Oakley Mill sourdough, cultured butter
£5.00
Baked twice a day from flour ground thirty miles away. The butter is churned here on Tuesdays.
Devilled scallop, on the shell
£9.00
Hand-dived off Westray, grilled hard in its own shell with cayenne butter and a squeeze of lemon. Two minutes from cold store to table.
Beetroot, smoked cod’s roe
£6.50
Roasted in salt until it collapses, then dressed while still warm. The roe is smoked over oak in the yard.
Stonebeck gougère
£4.50
Choux, baked to order, filled with a cheese that is different every month because the field is.
To start
Grilled gurnard, green sauce
£14.00
An unfashionable fish that the boats land whether we order it or not, and which is better than most of what we do order.
Roast celeriac, hazelnut, Stonebeck
£12.00
A whole celeriac in the embers for four hours, carved at the pass. Tastes more of meat than most meat does.
Beef tartare, oyster, chive
£16.00
Chopped by hand to order from a five-week rump. The oyster goes through the dressing, not on top of it.
Chicory, pear, walnut, blue
£11.00
Bitter, sweet, salt, and something to chew. The pears are the last of the Vale of Pewsey ones.
Mussels, cider, sea beet
£13.00
Steamed in a dry Herefordshire cider with a great deal of butter. Bread comes with it, because otherwise what is the point.
Mains
One of these each. The beef and the turbot are for two and take forty minutes.
Turbot on the bone, for two
£42.00
Whole, over charcoal, forty minutes. Carved at the table with the mussel butter poured over. The best thing we cook.
Sirloin, five weeks, bone marrow
£38.00
Longhorn, four years old, hung five weeks, cooked over wood. We buy a side at a time so the cut moves through the month.
Hogget, autumn greens, anchovy
£29.00
Older than lamb and much the better for it. Shoulder slow, loin fast, both on the plate.
Baked squash, Oakley grain, sage
£22.00
A crown prince from the four acres, baked whole and filled with cracked wheat, brown butter and a great deal of sage.
Plaice, brown shrimp, capers
£26.00
On the bone, butter, lemon, and the small brown shrimp that are worth the trouble of peeling.
Sides
Two between three is about right.
Potatoes in beef fat
£6.00
Cooked in the fat that came off the Longhorn. Not negotiable.
Greens, garlic, lemon
£5.50
Whatever came up this week, hot pan, thirty seconds.
Salad from the four acres
£6.00
Leaves cut that morning, dressed with cider vinegar and nothing clever.
Cracked grain, brown butter, herbs
£6.50
Oakley wheat, cracked and cooked like a risotto, finished with everything green in the kitchen.
Cheese
Cut to order at the counter. Ask what is eating well.
Sweet
Quince, sheep’s yoghurt, oat crumble
£10.00
Poached slowly in its own syrup until it goes the colour it is famous for going.
Brown butter tart, crème fraîche
£9.00
One tart, made at four, sold until it is gone. Usually by nine.
Damson ripple, Oakley shortbread
£9.00
Churned to order for eight people at a time from fruit picked in a lane outside Pewsey in September.
Chocolate, olive oil, salt
£9.50
Three ingredients and a spoon. The only pudding that has never come off.
Off the menu
Not on tonight
These exist. They are simply not in season, so they are not on the list. They come back when they come back, and putting them on sooner would mean buying them from somewhere they should not have come from.
Spring
Asparagus, brown butter, egg
Six weeks a year and not a day longer. Back in late April.
Spring
Wild garlic, new potato, curd
Picked from one wood we are not going to name. March and April only.
Summer
Tomatoes from the four acres, basil
August and the first week of September. There is no version of this in February that is worth eating.
Summer
Peas, broad beans, mint
Podded in the dining room before service by whoever is early.
Summer
Strawberries, sheep’s yoghurt
Six weeks in June and July, and then not again.
Winter
Forced rhubarb, custard
Grown in the dark in a shed in Wakefield, which is one of the few genuinely magical things left in British food. January to March.
The room
Ninety years a seed merchant
The drawers along the back wall are labelled in a hand nobody here can read, and we have stopped trying. Ninety years of seed went in and out of this building before anybody thought to cook in it, and the room still smells faintly of it on a warm afternoon.
Forty-six seats, one long table in the old sorting room at the back, and eight stools at the pass where you can watch the whole thing happen. The fire is real and most of what you eat has been over it.
Gallery
A look around the seed merchant’s
Nell Prideaux
Head chef
I learned to cook in other people’s countries. I came home to cook whatever grows twenty minutes from the door, on the day it is ready.
Nell grew up in Wiltshire among market gardens and herb beds, twenty minutes from Bridge Street. She left at eighteen for the first kitchen that would have her, then spent five years in Copenhagen and four in San Sebastián, learning two very different ways of taking an ingredient seriously.
She came home for the rain and the brassicas. Sorrel is the kitchen she wanted: no fixed menu, only what Ruth’s four acres, the Brixham boats and the Coppice Herd send in each morning. She writes the carte at six with the delivery notes in front of her, and still carves the celeriac at the pass.
Guests
What people say on the way out
“We came for the turbot and stayed for an argument about which of the damson puddings was better. Nobody has ever asked me what I thought of a vegetable before.”
Harriet Lowe
Dinner, October
“The menu we were handed at half past seven had changed since lunch, and the waiter could tell us exactly why. That is the whole restaurant in one sentence.”
Daniel Mercer
The Long Table, November
“I booked the counter on my own and ended up talking to the chef about cider vinegar for an hour. The best dinner I have eaten alone.”
Isla Morgan
The Counter, September
“My mother's seventieth, in the Seed Room. They put her name on the menu and her favourite cheese on the board without being asked.”
Tom Aldridge
The Seed Room, August
“We came for the turbot and stayed for an argument about which of the damson puddings was better. Nobody has ever asked me what I thought of a vegetable before.”
Harriet Lowe
Dinner, October
“The menu we were handed at half past seven had changed since lunch, and the waiter could tell us exactly why. That is the whole restaurant in one sentence.”
Daniel Mercer
The Long Table, November
“I booked the counter on my own and ended up talking to the chef about cider vinegar for an hour. The best dinner I have eaten alone.”
Isla Morgan
The Counter, September
“My mother's seventieth, in the Seed Room. They put her name on the menu and her favourite cheese on the board without being asked.”
Tom Aldridge
The Seed Room, August
Who grows it
Six people decide what we cook
Not suppliers in the sense of a phone number and a price list. Ruth tells us in February what we will be doing in September, and the boats tell us on the morning. We buy the landing, not an order.
Kell & Daughter
Market garden
Vale of Pewsey, Wiltshire
Brixham Day Boats
Line-caught fish
Brixham, Devon
Stonebeck
Raw cow’s milk cheese
Nidderdale, North Yorkshire
The Coppice Herd
Longhorn beef
Wye Valley, Monmouthshire
Westray Divers
Hand-dived scallops
Westray, Orkney
Oakley Mill
Stoneground flour
Test Valley, Hampshire
Kell & Daughter
Market garden
Vale of Pewsey, Wiltshire
Brixham Day Boats
Line-caught fish
Brixham, Devon
Stonebeck
Raw cow’s milk cheese
Nidderdale, North Yorkshire
The Coppice Herd
Longhorn beef
Wye Valley, Monmouthshire
Westray Divers
Hand-dived scallops
Westray, Orkney
Oakley Mill
Stoneground flour
Test Valley, Hampshire
What is coming
Supper clubs and tastings
Supper club
Damson Night
One long table, five courses, and damsons in every single one of them including the savoury ones. Yes, including the beef.
£55
14 places left
Tasting
Stonebeck: one herd, four cheeses
The same milk, four months apart, tasted side by side with the people who make it. The clearest hour you will ever spend on the subject of terroir.
£35
6 places left
Masterclass
Butchery: a side of Longhorn
A whole side broken down in front of four people, over three hours, with lunch and a bag of something to take home at the end.
£95
4 places left
Private dining
Three ways to close a door
The Seed Room
The old sorting room at the back, with the merchant’s drawers still in the wall.
14 seated
£850 minimum
The Counter
Eight stools at the pass, with whoever is cooking that night.
8 seated
£600 minimum
The Whole Room
Everything, doors closed, from five in the afternoon.
46 seated
£4,500 minimum
The Seed Room
The old sorting room at the back, with the merchant’s drawers still in the wall.
14 seated
£850 minimum
The Counter
Eight stools at the pass, with whoever is cooking that night.
8 seated
£600 minimum
The Whole Room
Everything, doors closed, from five in the afternoon.
46 seated
£4,500 minimum
Questions
Before you book
Do I need to book a table in advance?
For dinner on a Friday or Saturday, yes: those nights usually fill a week ahead. Lunch and midweek dinners often have room on the day, and the Counter keeps its eight stools for walk-ins from five o'clock, Wednesday to Saturday.
Where do your ingredients come from?
Almost everything comes from six suppliers we know by name: Kell & Daughter's market garden in the Vale of Pewsey, the Brixham day boats, Stonebeck's dairy, the Coppice Herd, Westray Divers and Oakley Mill. Every dish page says which one it came from.
Can you cater for allergies and dietary needs?
Yes. Every dish lists its allergens, and vegetarian and vegan dishes are marked on the menu. Tell us when you book and the kitchen will plan around it; with a day's notice we can adapt most of the carte.
Do you host private events?
The Seed Room seats fourteen for a private dinner, the Counter can be taken for eight, and the whole room is available for larger parties. Send an enquiry from the Private dining page and we will reply within a day.
Is there parking nearby?
The Polly Gardens car park is four minutes' walk away. There is step-free access to the main room and an accessible WC; the Seed Room is up three steps, so tell us if that matters and we will seat you downstairs.
Come and eat
Wednesday to Saturday
Tables go up eight weeks ahead. The counter is walk-in only and the eight stools are usually gone by half seven on a Friday. If you want the Long Table, book the whole thing.