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Ivan Tisdall-Downes, a candidate for the BBC’s Great British Menu, has been hailed as one of London’s most exciting new chefs, but has preferred rural Worcestershire to the capital. His prominent restaurant Native opened this week on the site of the Michelin-starred restaurant. Pensons closed in December 2023 due to “rising inflation and interest rates. “
Here’s a first look at Native and Ivan’s tasting menu, which has the flavors, aromas, and look to bring nature indoors and onto the plate. This includes their famous signature dish of marrow caramel paired with caramelized white chocolate, a sweet and gooey dessert served on a long bone.
Diners can try this with crispy nettles, bread served over steaming hay, and a redesign of Mrs. Dale’s historic Fidget Pie on the long or short tasting menus at the new dining spot on the Netherwood Estate. It’s set amidst a charming counter outside, halfway between Droitwich Spa and Tenbury Wells, near Malvern Hills, just over an hour from central Birmingham.
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Taking sustainability to the next level, the chef at Crystal Palace not only uses locally grown, seasonal foods, but advocates for the use of ingredients and each and every one of them deserves to be wasted less, which means more wonderful dishes are created from leftovers.
The former River Cottage chef, who was featured in the fifteenth series of the Great British Menu in 2020, even uses plants that return nutrients to the soil and help stimulate the rest of the food chain.
Working towards a Michelin star with his wife Imogen David, Ivan earned a reputation at his restaurants in Covent Garden, Borough Market and Mayfair, but turned his back on the city for the chance to have a giant vegetable lawn to supply his own produce. on its state-of-the-art menu.
It costs £65 depending on the user for a short tasting menu of around five courses and £105 for the longer edition with seven courses plus extras along the way. To try Marrowmel’s pudding, you need £12 more, but it’s a real must-see. -It has to be consistent with a percentage that tastes like divine candy and sticky. Instead of yet, it uses bone marrow.
Along the way, there are tasty, unique dishes and ingredients that I’ve never noticed and even less tried before and that make me wonder why I don’t see them more in restaurants. You can see photos of the entire menu in the photo gallery. down.
The trio of appetizers includes hazelnut moreel meatballs with venison sauce and a taco made with silage. There’s also Mrs. Dale’s Fidget Pie, nicely topped with miniature wildflowers, a new take on an old recipe in a warm appetizer cake that tastes like creamy mashed potatoes. .
The tasting menu of the new Native restaurant by the hand of Chef Great British Menu in pictures
Flowers and herbs are everywhere, on food, on walls, and even on menus. With the windows of the barn inverted one feels at one with nature.
Continuing with the meal, the fish dish offered on the longer menu is Angelica Leche De Tigre and is a refreshing blend of Chalk Stream Trout with rhubarb and blade.
A bright green rejuvenating risotto with a crispy fried nettle on top follows, thankfully not spicy at all and is very tasty. It’s accompanied by a butter tart made with new beans from the lawn I’m on.
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It follows the Herdwick lamb with Wye Valley asparagus, black garlic and alliums and has the texture of abdominal red meat and herbal aromas. The meat comes from a nearby farm, while the honey for the next dessert comes from the farm’s beehives.
Thyme and Honey has a puff pastry lid built with a honeycomb tendency and a caramel-like flavor. Underneath is homemade frozen yogurt paired with decadent flavors and a plate next to it has warm, gooey chamomile muffins.
Before the petit fours, you have to climb the Marrowmel, which is remarkably memorable, as shown below.
As he shows me around the garden, Ivan hums with excitement as we pass rows of rhubarb to his own hives and a wild meadow with newly planted hazelnuts. Then the diversity of botanicals, from angelica to yarrow, thyme, kohlrabi, artichoke, and a fall-ready pumpkin patch.
He tells me that the milk and butter come from Mawley Milk, an hour from here, where the cows milk themselves and enter the shed when they are fit to be milked. The beef supplier comes from “two hills in” 3 kilometres away with free-ranging Aberdeen Angus cows.
“I’m very pleased to be here,” Ivan says. Worcestershire has a country flavour with rolling hills and the produce is amazing.
“We don’t need to pontificate to other people here, however, everything is thoroughly studied and our overall purpose is to fix the food chain. We are proponents of regenerative agriculture, we seek to put more in the ground than we take out.
“The Chalk Stream trout comes from a position where it’s not raised as much as it’s controlled and we use local farms to source all the pork, lamb and beef. “
Bookings for the first month have already come in from many locals eager to see what other Pensons natives are like. In addition to tasting menus, wine pairings charge £60 per month.
Native is located in the former Michelin-starred restaurant Pensons, in a secluded field of Netherwood Estate, near Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire. Use the ZIP Code WR15 8RT to locate it.
Make your reservations here at the Nativo or ask for the menus.
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