London pub the Culpeper to add new dining room, bedrooms and rooftop space
A new dining room at the Culpeper pub in East London is to open on 10 March.
The 44-cover space will open on the site's first floor, and will be under the direction of head chef Sandy Jarvis, formerly head chef at Terroirs wine bar in the West End.
The dining room's launch will be followed in the summer by a fourth-floor rooftop dining space (with views of the City), and five new en-suite bedrooms on the third floor.
Up until now only the ground floor has been open, since June 2014.
The new menu will aim to be simple and seasonal, and include the traditional starter, main, dessert set-up, plus large sharing plates for two or more, with options such as a 500g veal chop with sage, lemon and caper butter.
Typical dishes will include red-wine braised squid with lemon and garlic; crispy lamb breast with parsnip, anchovy and mint salad; wild sea bass with brown shrimps; chocolate chip cookie panna cotta with chocolate sauce; and rhubarb with polenta and almond tart.
Chef Jarvis will also continue to oversee the daily-changing pub menu on the ground floor, which offers a daily chop, and lunchtime sandwiches. Other snacks on offer include blood pudding and ham hock balls; ‘porkcorn' (popcorn doused in pork fat with sprinkles of crackling) a deep fried pig's head, and leaves with pickled walnuts.
There will also be a continuation of the existing natural, French wine list, alongside bottled beers, draft lagers, and seasonally-changing cocktails based on homegrown herbs.
Named after a seventeenth-century herbalist from London's Spitalfields, the nineteenth century Culpeper is on the site of the former Princess Alice pub, which had fallen into disrepair. Owners Nico Treguer, Gareth Roberts and Bash Redford took on the property with a view to renovating it, and growing vegetables, salad and herbs for use in the kitchen.
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