Nine courses from one binding
Marginalia — 02 / 06
The Reading
Each evening is a reading of one chosen volume from the shelves, cooked in nine courses by candlelight.
01
Three weeks with one book
The kitchen reads, cooks and re-edits with one book at its side for three weeks before opening that binding to guests. The book is then set on the table, close enough for a sauce mark or a pencilled note.
A new book opens every three weeks; the menu changes with the binding. The meal becomes an argument with the margin as much as the page.
02
The current binding
Hilda Leyel's The Magic of Herbs, Jonathan Cape, 1926. Leyel takes herbs as primary ingredients rather than garnishes — lovage carrying a broth the way bay leaf cannot, tansy folded into brown butter, woodruff set overnight into custard. Half cookbook, half pharmacopoeia.
Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845) opens late May; Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747) follows mid-June.
- Dinner £195 · wine pairing £125 · lunch £85 · service included.
- The Friday and Saturday lunch reading takes five of the nine.
- No added sucrose in the sweet courses.
Read the binding at the table
The rest of the courses arrive without being announced.