Why coal

Jack and Danny have been friends for sixteen years. For most of that time the conversation has come back to the same place: a fire, something good laid over it, and as little as possible in between. Cook over the open flame. Celebrate the ingredient. Stay out of its way.

In lockdown they very nearly did it. For a moment it looked as though the fire would be lit. It was not, but the idea never went anywhere either. Now, at Tollgate in Bramber, it is coming to life.

The oldest way to cook

Before ovens, before gas, before anyone wrote a recipe down, there was a bed of coals and something laid across it. That is where cooking began, and in the kitchens we admire most it is where cooking still lives.

Coal is a restaurant built around that bed. Meat, fish, vegetables, bread: nearly everything we serve will meet the coals. Not because it is a trend, and not because it photographs well, though it does. Because heat from a live fire does something to food that nothing else can. It sears and it smokes and it caramelises at the same time. It leaves a taste of the fire itself.

Patience, then attention

A fire is not a dial. You cannot turn it up. You light it hours before service, you rake it, you read it, and you learn to cook where the heat is rather than where you would like it to be. It rewards a cook who pays attention and it punishes one who does not. We think that attention is the whole point, and that guests can taste it.

The oldest way to cook is still the best. It only asks that you pay attention.

The cooking will be simple to describe and difficult to do well: good things from nearby, cooked over the coals, and not much else on the plate to distract from that.

Sixteen years is a long time to carry an idea. We will light the fire when it is ready, and not before. If you would like to hear when that is, leave your email on the front page.