Dining Out 069: The Wild Table by The Laundry
Dinner near Colchester.
I am convinced that something awful is about to befall me, for the simple reason that I’m currently on such a nice run of getting to do really cool stuff that it simply cannot continue. Following my lil jaunt to Barcelona, earlier this week I went for dinner and a bit of a glamp (hehe x) in the Essex countryside, to “experience” an event called The Wild Table.
The Wild Table takes place at Tey Brook Orchard in Essex - which is run by the Browning family - and it is a dinner prepared largely outside, by Mel Brown (who also heads up The Laundry in Brixton) and her kind and talented team of chefs, on the grounds of said orchard. Don’t get me wrong, on paper this does all obviously sound very pleasant indeed - I am not sure there are many people who would ever be like “multi-course dinner in an orchard? Sounds disgusting actually” - but in practice, it’s about ten times as cool as I had expected, and is genuinely one of the most fun, uniquely lovely things I’ve done in ages. Let me tell you about it.
Tey Brook Orchard’s whole deal is that it is an event space for things like weddings and retreats, and, as I mentioned, you can glamp onsite. My pal Steph and I stayed in a bell tent, and this meant that our morning after the dinner was soundtracked by the very sweet cooing and chirping of birds outside, adding to the general idyllic-ness of the situation (I will say, however, there was also a bed and an electric blanket, and as nice as the bird sounds were, I would have complained about them so, so much if I were sleeping on the floor.)
Before the glamping, however, was dinner. For this, there was an area designated as the restaurant space. Here, there were pretty tables that felt almost Fairyland-ish - adorned with flowers and ornate little menus - set up around the centrepiece of a huge grill, where everything from trout to pak choi was getting the fire treatment, which does, let’s face it, simply just make stuff more delicious: there is a reason why dads everywhere are itching get the barbecue out as soon as it hits 14 degrees, and they are right to do it.
To get things really popping off, before we were seated, we were brought on a little walk through the woodland, to a clearing where there were intro drinks - specifically rhubarb spritzes, made using Tey Brook’s own sparkling rose, which tasted berry-sweet in the front, with a more vanilla-y finish in the back* - plus snacks.
It was when I realised that the snacks on offer were fresh scallops, being cooked on another gigantic, sculptural open fire grill, that I understood I had not appropriately registered the game I was about to encounter. My friends and I have a joke that we tell whenever our circumstances are laughably Nice, which is that we’re like dogs who are being given a really good final day before the vet puts them down - and honestly, the second I saw the scallops on the flat-top, as this sort of miraculous-feeling evening sunshine hit the top of my head, if you’d have told me that the lethal injection was coming for me, I really might not have minded.
As everyone chomped on their scallops (which had all of the right sweet tenderness, brought out even more by a smoky little serving of barbecue sauce), Mel gave a speech to explain the rationale behind The Wild Table. It was born out of the fact that she, a native Kiwi with a restaurant in London, really missed the seasonal, fire-based cooking with local ingredients that she had grown up with, and had long sought out a place in the UK where she could experience it again. Eventually she found the Browning family and Tey Brook Orchard, and established The Wild Table there. I am going a bit soft in my old age, I will accept, but I do just think any sort of meeting of minds and intentions like that is very sweet, and it made the whole thing feel very sincere and uncynical.
After that, we went to take our seats for dinner, and what followed was a selection of sharing starters, selected for seasonality and locality (even the wine on the table was from Sussex), and in many cases cooked on the grill. My highlights from that section were cedar-grilled trout - which flaked away just as soon as you so much as nudged it with a fork - with baby mustard and dill from the Tey Brook Orchard grounds, plus tandoori-style lamb neck served on tart, almost sour labneh.
The main course was venison, which I have not eaten in years, and was easily my favourite part. It came served on a beetroot puree that I thought I would find cloying, but which actually had the welcome sugariness of like, a ketchup? Pressed up against the slight char on the outside of the meat, it was a combination I really loved, though a few more potatoes on the plate would not have gone amiss.
To finish, there were - and you are reading this combination of words correctly - DIY BAKED ALASKA S’MORES (let me repeat: BAKED ALASKA S’MORES) whereby we were invited to come and cook our own little blob of ice cream dipped in meringue, on the fire, before sprinkling it with s’mores crumbs. Again, not sure what number bus I’m about to be hit by, but I’m glad it waited until I got to eat this dessert.
PI had an absolute ball at The Wild Table, and a big part of that was down to so many tiny details - blankets and hot water bottles out on the benches so that we could actually enjoy eating outside; individual pinch pots of salt; egg and bacon brioche rolls the next morning - that showed such care, and such pure hospitality. Truly, everything had been thought of. I’m absolutely not an outdoorsy person in the slightest - but even I loved the chance to get some air into my lungs, some food in my belly, and some joy into my rotten little heart, which, like the Grinch’s, grew about five sizes over the course of this very affirming meal. See you next week, when we’re going to Paris by way of Peckham, unless I get Final Destination-ed as predicted.
The Wild Table will take place again in September and if you want to do something special around that time of year, I would heartily recommend it. Tickets are £85 a head (though you do have to get yourself there if you’re not local, and glamping is not included but you really might as well because it’s such good craic) which, for this particular experience - it really did surpass my expectations - I actually reckon is a decent price. I was able to go along thanks to Danae, Frances, and the lovely people at Tonic Comms, but as usual the thoughts are my own and I always tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
* I am really trying to get better at describing wine without sounding like a knobhead who has never written a sentence in her life, all feedback welcomed.
OTHER THINGS OF NOTE THIS WEEK:
- I went to the opening party for All Roads on Atlantic Road in Brixton on Wednesday. For the last three years, All Roads has been operating as a supper club, and now it is a real life restaurant, which I think is so cool. I also felt like that was very evident in the generous way that the food - which is Carribean-inspired, with some southern US soul food elements - kept coming, and was shared all night, with loads of music and gobby chat from all corners. If you want my take, it’s that if you would like to drink fun cocktails and eat a fucking unbelievable mac and cheese, with crumbly cornbread and peppery fried chicken to accompany it (and why would you not want to do this?), you will like this place, as I very much did.
- Sainsbury’s have got rid of my favourite white chocolate and cornflake cereal milk cookies so I will now be entering an official period of mourning. If you see me going around south east London in an ornate black veil, do not approach me.
Dining Out is written by Lauren O’Neill. Weekly articles are free to read every Sunday, and you can follow me on Instagram here, but if you’d like to see more, you can subscribe for £5 pcm or £50 annually to get extra content a few times a month. Click below to see paid and free subscription options, and thanks very much for reading.