In 1888 the Wharf’s lamplighter turned his front parlour into a supper room for sailors coming off the evening tide. The brass lamps he polished every dusk still hang above table four.
Today Chef Margot Ellery cooks from the same coast and the same walled gardens, with a kitchen that runs on wood, patience and a very old copper stockpot.
We still keep the original ledgers, the brass and the stubborn habit of doing things slowly. What has changed is the cooking: lighter, seasonal and rooted in growers we know by name.
Since 1888
A short history
- 1888
The first supper
Lamplighter Josiah Wren opens his parlour to the evening tide.
- 1931
The cellar opens
The old coal store becomes a wine cellar of 400 bins.
- 1998
Cathedral Close
A second house opens in a former vestry beside the cathedral.
- 2014
Chef Margot
Margot Ellery takes the pass and rewrites the bill of fare.
The kitchen
Meet Margot Ellery
We cook the way the house is lit: slowly, warmly, and with nothing to hide.
Trained in old harbour kitchens and two seasons abroad, our chef writes the menu each morning with the growers on the phone. The brigade is small, the stockpot is older than any of us, and staff meal is taken seriously.
Margot Ellery
What we believe
House rules
Lit by hand
Every candle and lamp is lit at dusk by the front-of-house team.
Coast & garden
Fish from boats we know by name; vegetables from two walled gardens.
Nothing rushed
Two seatings a night, so your table is yours for the evening.
Our houses
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