What's worth the table just now
A handful of plates we're proud of this week. The menu turns every Tuesday, so what's below is a taste of the rhythm rather than a fixed card — come and see what the growers and the boats have given us.
- Charred hispi cabbage, brown butter Saddlescombe Farm Blackened over the coals until sweet, dressed in nutty brown butter and a little lemon. The dish people come back for.
- Hogget, wild garlic, new potatoes South Downs Slow-cooked Downland hogget with wild garlic pulled from the hedgerows this week and the first of the Jersey Royals.
- Newhaven plaice, brown shrimp, sea herbs Day boat Landed at Newhaven that morning, pan-roasted on the bone with a brown-shrimp butter and samphire.
- Quince tart, raw cream Garden & orchard Quinces poached soft and amber, set in shortcrust, with a jug of unpasteurised Sussex cream.
Ten years of London kitchens, then the road back to Lewes.
Mara Whitfield grew up under the Downs and learned to cook a long way from them — a decade through London kitchens, the early starts and the late finishes, the markets at dawn. What she missed was knowing exactly where a thing came from, and the people who grew it.
So she came home. The Copper Larder is the room she always wanted: small enough to cook properly for, close enough to the farms and the harbour to let the produce do the talking. An open pass, candlelight, a short list of natural wine, and a menu that answers to the season rather than the other way round.
Mara WhitfieldChef & owner
Read the sourcing & story →Twenty-eight seats, a few hundred good evenings.
The best meal we've had in Sussex, full stop. You can taste how close the food is to the ground it came from. We've booked again before we'd finished pudding.
Helen & Rob — Lewes
Candlelight, an open pass and a glass of something natural and odd in the best way. It feels like being cooked for at home, if home had a brilliant chef.
Priya N. — Brighton
The hispi cabbage alone is worth the drive. A short menu done properly beats a long one every time — nothing on the card felt like filler.
James T. — Eastbourne
We hired the back room for my mother's birthday. Mara walked us through every dish and every grower. Quiet, handsome, and genuinely kind. The whole table still talks about it.
The Ashworth family — Ringmer
Pull up a chair this week.
We hold twenty-eight covers a night, and the good evenings book up early. Reserve a candlelit table, ask us about Sunday lunch or a winemaker's supper, or take the whole back room for your own gathering.
Where
The Copper Larder
Lewes, East Sussex
When
Open for dinner and Sunday lunch
Good to know
One short menu, turned weekly · Natural wine · 28 covers