A TASTING OF DEVONSHIRE CRAB

It’s impossible to eat crab and not feel the salty tang of a sea breeze, even if you happen to be sitting in a restaurant just off High Street Kensington.

It’s one of the loveliest ingredients for any chef to work with, offering the sweet, salty delicacy of the white meat and the earthy richness of the brown.

For our supper club this month, Mark Kempson will be celebrating Devonshire crab in a cracker of a menu that showcases the beautifully balanced meat from pot‑caught brown crabs, handled and cooked with great care.

If you love crab as much as Mark does, it’s a must‑go‑to event, but as it’s held in our private dining room there are only 14 places available, so you’ll need to book early to reserve your place.

If you’ve not been to one of our supper club events before, do try this one. It’s a really convivial evening where you sit around our communal table with fellow food lovers and enjoy a great meal, with Mark on hand to talk you through all the courses.

Do join us for an evening celebrating the wonder of foraged and wild foods. There will be game in the form of Roe Deer and Wild Rabbit, river-fished Trout and Guinea Fowl. Then from hedgerows you will find Nettle Aioli and Wild Leek and Wild Garlic too and the first of the seasons delicate Elderflower.

We are running this event in collaboration with the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust as part of their advocacy for the health and conservation benefits of wild food.This event is usually held for the Trust’s members only, but because they know our guests are very partial to delicious game and foraged dishes, they are happy for us to extend an invitation to Kitchen W8’s guests too

The evening starts with Champagne on arrival and ends with a delicious glass of Taylor’s port. Tickets, which are £250 per person, can be bought direct from the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust. Just click the button below to enquire.

A CELEBRATION OF GAME

Mark Kempson discovered chef-turned-butcher Ryan West entirely by chance when he came across Ryan’s newly opened shop in Banstead during lockdown. He was lured in by sight of a dry-aging cabinet in the window showcasing some ‘serious beef’. Soon he developed a rapport with the young butcher and discovered a kindred spirit.

Ryan’s love of small-farm-reared, rare-breed meat was fostered by his own background in restaurants. He started working for Gary Rhodes when he was just 15 and then went on to train at Westminster college after which he worked at Pied à Terre. In 2015, he transitioned into butchery, where he found his true passion.

He has been supplying Kitchen W8 with some outstanding meat for some time now, and we thought we’d celebrate our partnership with a very special dinner in which Ryan will put on his chef’s whites once more and join Mark at the stoves.

Mark has devised some beautiful dishes using interesting cuts of beef, and has even come up with an inventive take on surf and turf in which the flavour of native lobster is amplified and enhanced by the warm, savoury seasoning of a silky and light smoked beef fat emulsion. This deepens and warms the entire dish. It’s an immensely creative piece of cooking.

The star of the show will be a superb Dexter beef rib-eye cooked over coals which Mark says is one of the best pieces of beef he’s ever eaten.

 If all of this sounds irresistible, do come and join us for our very special Sunday evening dinner on the second May bank holiday weekend which promises to be a beef lover’s dream.