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Week 23 · Late Autumn

This week's plates

A short menu, written around what arrived this week and rewritten the next. What the South Downs gave us and what came in on the Newhaven boats — cooked plainly, sent out warm. This is the menu as it stands today; come Tuesday it will read a little differently.

Format

Three courses, à la carte. Smaller plates to share if you'd rather graze.

Changes

Rewritten every Tuesday as new produce lands. Tonight's sheet may differ.

Charred hispi cabbage with brown butter plated on matte ceramic in natural daylight
Charred hispi, brown butter, toasted hazelnut — on the sheet this week.
The full sheet

To start, to finish

From first plate to last. Prices are per dish; the kitchen is happy to talk you through anything on the sheet, and to flex a course for the table.

To start

  • Charred hispi cabbage, brown butter £11

    Grilled hard over the coals, dressed in nutty brown butter and toasted Sussex hazelnuts.

    Vegetarian
  • Newhaven crab on toast £14

    Hand-picked day-boat crab, lemon, a little chilli, on grilled sourdough.

  • Roast squash, sage, ewe's curd £10

    Crown Prince squash roasted in its skin, fried sage, soft local ewe's curd.

    Vegetarian

To follow

  • Hogget, wild garlic, new potatoes £26

    Slow-cooked South Downs hogget shoulder, foraged wild garlic, buttered Jersey Royals.

  • Day-boat plaice, brown shrimp, capers £24

    Whole plaice off the Newhaven boats, brown shrimp butter, capers, parsley.

  • Pearl barley, field mushrooms, thyme £19

    Slow-cooked barley, a tangle of wild and field mushrooms, thyme, aged Sussex hard cheese.

    Vegetarian
  • Dexter beef, celeriac, bone marrow £28

    Slow-braised Dexter from the Downs, roast celeriac, a spoon of bone-marrow gravy.

Alongside

  • Buttered greens, lemon £5

    Whatever's good from the market garden, lightly cooked, butter and lemon.

  • Dripping-roast potatoes £6

    Crisp in beef dripping, rosemary salt.

To finish

  • Quince & almond tart £9

    Poached quince, frangipane, a spoon of clotted cream.

  • Buttermilk pudding, blackberries £8

    Set buttermilk, hedgerow blackberries, a little honey.

  • Sussex cheeses, oatcakes £12

    Three local cheeses, quince paste, our own oatcakes.

A short note from the pass: the sheet changes weekly, so dishes come and go with the season. Tell us about allergies and we'll guide you through — most plates can be adjusted, and there's always something good for those who don't eat meat.

Natural wine

The bottles we keep

A short, honest list of low-intervention bottles — growers we trust, made with as little in the way as possible. We pour generously by the glass so you can follow the food as it changes, and we're glad to find the right thing for your table.

A glass of natural wine being poured at a candlelit table in The Copper Larder

Skin-contact Bacchus, Sussex

English orange · cloudy, textured, dry

£9 / £38

Pét-nat, Loire Valley

Sparkling · bone-dry, faintly wild

£10 / £42

Gamay, Beaujolais

Light red · bright, chilled, glouglou

£9 / £40

Trousseau, Jura

Red · earthy, pale, savoury

£12 / £52

Mtsvane, Georgia

Amber, qvevri · grippy, dried apricot

£11 / £46

Cider, Herefordshire

Keeved still cider · for those off the wine

£7 / £30
The rhythm

How the week turns

A menu in motion has a rhythm of its own. Here's how one week becomes the next at The Copper Larder — from the first call to the farms to the last plate on Sunday.

01 Monday — closed

Mara walks the farms

The room is dark, but the week is already starting. Calls to the South Downs growers, a look at what's coming good, a word with the Newhaven skippers about the next day's landings.

02 Tuesday

The sheet is written

Whatever arrived sets the menu. A new sheet is written by hand around the best of it — usually a handful of starters, four or five mains, three things to finish. No more than the kitchen can cook properly.

03 Wed — Sat

Service, at the open pass

28 covers, candlelight, the pass in full view. Dishes are tweaked night to night as produce runs down — and when something sells out, it's gone until next week. That's the point.

04 Sunday

The long lunch

The week closes slowly. A roast built on the same farms, shared down the table, no rush to turn it. Then the room rests, and on Monday the whole thing begins again.

This week only

Taste it this week, before it changes

This sheet won't be here long — by Tuesday it reads differently. If something on it caught your eye, keep a seat while it's still on. The room holds 28; weekends fill early.

Keep a seat Where it comes from

Open for dinner Wednesday to Saturday, and for Sunday lunch · Lewes, East Sussex