Wood-fire restaurant coming to Brighton in April

This April will see Brighton chefs Dave Marrow and Isaac Bartlett-Copeland come together to open Embers – a new restaurant celebrating Sussex produce cooked over a wood-fire.

Opening on 3 April, Embers will be the first joint venture from long-term friends Marrow and Bartlett-Copeland, who first met 15 years ago as mentor and mentee in Bartlett-Copeland’s first kitchen role at The Grand Hotel in Brighton. 

Embers’ menu will focus on locally grown ingredients, cooked entirely on a medieval wood-fire cage positioned over smouldering embers. Having cooked in some of Brighton’s most well-respected dining establishments including Terre à Terre and Isaac At, both chefs will bring their classical training to a new setting. The succinct menu will see elements of every dish cooked entirely over local, kiln-dried ash and birch wood, veering away from gas and electricity altogether.

With Marrow heading up the kitchen, guests can expect a range of playful yet thoughtfully crafted snacks, small plates and centrepiece dishes alongside a concise selection of desserts. Dishes will be served sharing-style, drawing inspiration from Embers’ ancestral cooking ethos. Menu highlights will include: glazed lamb ribs, candied ginger, kimchi and furikake; smoky chicken leg, crispy skin, n'duja aioli and honey butter; wagyu Denver steak, roscoff onion and coffee hollandaise; shiitake and cashew larb, bitter herbs and charred hispi cabbage; dry-aged pork tomahawk, burnt leek, pickled mustard seed and juices; miso celeriac, koji-soaked engiri, fresh spring truffle, pickled sea vegetables and mushroom XO; banana split, parsnip and rosemary ice crean, toffee sauce and praline; and cheese on toast with truffle and parmesan. 

Cocktails will be a large focus at Embers, with an extensive drinks menu featuring a range of classic cocktails and serves that showcase the smoky flavours and fiery character that are a pillar of the restaurant’s personality. For example, the Smoking Sazerac combines flavours of cognac, whiskey and bitters; while the Flaming Zombie is a mix of rum, orange juice, pineapple juice and Velvet Falernum, served to the table with a flaming sugar cube.

Located on the iconic Meeting House Lane, the 42-cover restaurant has been collaboratively designed by Bartlett-Copeland, Marrow, Bartlett-Copeland’s wife Hannah, and respected local carpenter Paul Bethell to create a warm yet paired-back space with the fire cage, ensuring guests can experience the theatrical cooking style. Embers will also open a back room comprising 18 covers in June.

Of the opening, Isaac Bartlett-Copeland said: "It’s always been our dream to open a restaurant together and I’m so excited that this dream has finally been realised. We want Embers to be about big, bold flavours and the sort of restaurant we’d want to go to on our days off – it’s all about fire and friendship!"

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