INTRODUCING ELDR’S HEAD CHEF JENNY WARNER
Our new head chef Jenny Warner is captivating the kitchen with an explosion of new ideas, dishes, techniques and flavours.
JANUARY 2022
When Eldr head chef Jenny Warner was visiting her family in Finland over the Christmas break 2021, she discovered a set of home economics textbooks her mother had inherited. A window into the traditional cooking of her country, incredibly, they had been published over a century ago in 1913.
Jenny had just taken over the kitchen at Eldr and Roof Garden at Pantechnicon and was in the process of creating her first menu for the restaurant. The cookbooks not only triggered a spark of ideas and inspirations, but a flood of memories and nostalgia for the food of her youth – from home-cooked meals to freshly made school dinners prepared by surprisingly able cooks.
Yorkshire rhubarb, hay cream, buckwheat granola
A SEASONAL STUDY
She’d already started work by exploring the seasonal ingredients and preserves she wished to work with: something that’s always the basis of her process. In keeping with the Pantechnicon ethos, the vast majority would be British, but some would come from the Nordics and Europe.
There’d be line caught Skrei cod that’s in season for just three months. There’d be swede, chicory, beetroot, blood orange and a sweet Yorkshire rhubarb dessert. The final hazelnuts from the autumn harvest would also be put to good use. The tradition of preserving berries from the summer to brighten those dark winter days would be on show through pickled lingonberries, candied rose hip and cloudberry jam. There’s not much that can be foraged in January, but reindeer moss – a beautiful looking form of fungi – and pines from evergreen trees could be.
Atlantic shrimp, poached trout, potato & charred leek
TRADITION MEETS NEW NORDIC
Taking direct inspiration from the quintessential flavours of her childhood, the first dish Jenny created was a riff on Lohikeitto, a rustic Finnish fish soup. But rather than boiling the ingredients together in a bowl as tradition dictates, every element – Atlantic shrimp, poached trout, potato and charred leek – is prepared separately through a different cooking method before being plated in a simple fish broth. This allows each ingredient to shine, while challenging the idea of what a soup can be: like all the menu, it plays with the past and present, influenced by the pioneers of New Nordic cuisine.
Finland spent the century proceeding the close of WWI as an autonomous state within Russia, a fact that’s betrayed by some of the dishes in the 1913 cookbooks, including home-pickled gherkins eaten with honey and sour cream. The spirit of the snack is beautifully present in another of the five starters: cured halibut with pickled cucumber, smoked honey and a creamy dill sauce. Halibut is a sweet fish with a hint of umami; and so the plate is completed by a herb waffle to create a surprising explosion of sweet and sour.
Skrei cod, smoked cream, roasted salsify & watercress
FLAVOURS FROM THE EARTH
For the mains, Jenny takes notes from the Earth. A meaty fillet of Skrei cod is paired with cream smoked by dropping hot coals directly into it, as well as beautifully roasted salsify root. Chicken from Sladesdown Farm is served in a broth infused by aromatic pine oil. Then there’s a plant-based plate of braised chicory, candied beets, hazelnuts and blood orange, that despite being 100% seasonal, is designed to provide a burst of colour and freshness for winter.
Sharing plates for two celebrate the simplicity of fire cooking to create a fulfilling feast: ribeye on the bone or pork cutlet. A third, of whole breaded sole, is cooked in the classic way – shallow frying in butter until it’s rich and crispy on the outside, tender and flaky within. Each is served with the most exciting of roast potato: the hasselback – alongside pickled lingonberries, seasonal greens, a herb and garlic dressing akin to Nordic chimichurri, as well as an extra surprise (spoiler: for the ribeye, it’s bone marrow).
Ribeye served with hasselback potatoes, pickled lingonberries & seasonal greens
A NEW SNACK MENU
A cured meat selection headlines a new snack menu. Inspired by tradition, but made using global flavours, there’s three cuts: aromatic venison from Aynhoe Park in Northamptonshire that’s marinated in a blend of spices before being air-dried in the kitchen; succulent British beef sirloin cured with citrus, thyme, rosemary and akvavit; plus air-dried reindeer direct from Sweden that’s cut so finely it almost crumbles in the mouth.
The meat plate is joined by three new smørrebrød, each intricately layered with ingredients that play with flavour and texture: cured trout with egg butter and dill; moose salami, pickled onion and juniper; and celeriac with black winter truffle. Both menus are available until spring 2022 when a new seasonal menu will arrive: drop by to discover how Jenny is captivating the kitchen with her explosion of new ideas, dishes, techniques and flavours.
Cured trout with egg butter and dill smørrebrød