The Menu
Offering just one menu, a Tasting Menu, allows us to bring together everything that we have grown and developed into a purposefully designed experience.
The menu is inspired by the ingredients that we grow and forage in and around Oldstead. It might be something outwardly simple but really fresh and delicious or perhaps an incredible flavour developed by fermenting, pickling or prolonged ageing.
Our Roots
‘When you work somewhere that your family has lived and farmed for centuries you just feel like you have ‘roots’; it’s like the place belongs to you and you belong to it. Once you get to know what’s there and learn how to use it, you just want to build on it.’
We forage in the hedgerows and woodland at Oldstead; grow those wonderfully traditional garden and field crops. Nick Brown, our Development Chef experiments with alternative produce, or ways to develop our own techniques to create something very much of our time. Tommy Banks works alongside Head Chef, Will Lockwood to bring this Oldstead produce to our menu all year around.
In the Glass
It’s not just the food; developing the drinks list is work that’s truly steeped in passion. There’s constant experimentation. It’s about preserving and enhancing flavours; it’s fruit, vegetables and herbs; its juices, cordials, liqueurs and essences; it’s pressing, filtering, distilling, drying, fermenting and ageing; and then, it’s there in a cocktail glass – sweet, sour, spicy, spirity and special. Designed and made in Oldstead.
Straight to plate
Farming, foraging and growing our own gives us incredibly fresh produce and exciting rare ingredients. With field-scale crops on our farm and two acres of growing beds and terraces in the garden adjoining The Black Swan, Tommy and the team produce wonderfully diverse seasonal menus with a real connection between field and plate.