The Autumn Menu: Five Courses, Five Glasses

The autumn menu opens tonight and stays with us for six weeks, until the third week of October. Five courses, one seating, twenty seats at the long table. Here's what's coming out of the kitchen.

The five courses

1. Pear and fennel, cold whey, dill oil. Cold, bright and a little sweet. This is the course that wakes the room up. With it: a dry cider from a small orchard, tangy enough to meet the fennel.

2. Salt-baked celeriac, hazelnut, brown butter. The celeriac spends ninety minutes in a salt crust and comes out soft as a baked potato, with a nutty edge. We crack the crust at the table. With it: a skin-contact white with a little grip.

3. Lake trout, beetroot, horseradish cream. Gently cooked, the beet roasted until its sugars go dark, and the horseradish kept restrained on purpose. With it: a light red, served cool.

4. Braised lamb shoulder, quince, black cabbage. Slow and deep, with the quince cutting through the richness. Squash from Brindle Hill sits underneath. With it: a medium-bodied red, low in oak, with a peppery finish.

5. Baked apple, burnt honey ice cream, oat crumble. The apple comes warm, the ice cream cold, and the honey is taken just past sweet. With it: a late-harvest white wine, or a pale floral tea.

The non-alcoholic flight

If you'd rather skip wine, we pour a kombucha and tea flight that follows the same five courses. Kombucha with real acidity opens the evening. A smoky tea sits beside the lamb. Something pale and floral closes with the apple. It's a full pairing, not a substitute.

What to know before you come

• One seating a night, at 7pm, Wednesday through Saturday.

• The menu runs as written. We cook for the whole table at once, so changes on the night are difficult.

• Tell us about allergies when you book. It's the first thing we ask, and it's how we plan the kitchen. Please don't wait until you're seated.

• Pairings are optional and priced separately. Order a single glass or a bottle for the table if you prefer.

Reserving

Reservations open on the 1st of every month at 10am local time, and the long table tends to fill within the hour. If you're hoping for October, mark the calendar now. Booking details are on our about page, and the thinking behind how we build a menu like this one is in How a Menu Gets Written After the Boxes Arrive.

Everything on these five plates was grown, raised or caught within our hundred and twenty kilometres, and the farmers are paid directly.

See you at the table.