Wine & drinks
Menu and wine pairings
As our guests pre-book and pre-order, which achieves our sustainability and zero waste, menus are sent out in advance and usually include a matched wine suggestion for the main elements. We suggest reasonably priced wines and sometimes a more luxurious wine as well. It's just a suggestion and you are free to choose whatever you want. We offer some wines by the glass and we have the Coravin system and aeration. We can send you a PDF of our current wine list when you confirm your booking by paying your deposit.
On the tasting menus we also offer a tailored wine flight for groups.
We use fine stemware mostly from Riedel, but have other fine glassware available for special tastings, including Schott Zwiesel, Alto, Jancis Robinson and Josephinenhütte. We also have fine cut lead crystal John Jenkins stemware which is photogenic for wedding celebrations.
Our list
We don't publish our extensive wine list online as it changes often. We regularly visit new vineyards and suppliers, and refine our offering after tastings. As lifelong fine wine enthusiasts we curate the list entirely ourselves and don't offer wines / producers that we have not tasted. We don't aim to cover the entire world, but rather focus on favoured regions and styles that we are experienced with. We currently stock over 300 wines, including a range of champagnes and other sparkling wines such as Crèmante, and around twenty dessert wines.
Because of our owner's German roots, where her extended family owns a vineyard in the Mosel region, we specialise in German Rieslings, which we import directly ourselves, from vineyards that we visit regularly and know the producers - invariably family businesses. We also specialise in fine Bordeaux as lifelong collectors and en primeur buyers.
Our list covers a wide price range, from inexpensive, through to very high end such as Ch. Margaux, Palmer, Latour, Lafite and Petrus. We also carry what some enthusiasts regard as cult wines such as Ch. Musar, plus some exceptionally fine English wines from multi award winning Dermot and Ana Sugrue for example.
Where we do not import directly ourselves, we work with a local wine merchant in Kent, Tim Fletcher who runs Rodney Fletcher Vintners in Horsmonden, literally 5 minutes away from us in the Kentish weald. Tim has a huge range and for example supplies our finest Australian Shiraz, our French Cotes du Rhônes and our accessible Bordeaux and Burgundy wines. He also provides us with our most local wine, made in Marden (two villages away) in Kent: Herbert Hall sparkling, and is highly recommended.
We can on request, send a PDF of our current wine list when you have paid your deposit. The list is always subject to change as wines do sell out and very fine wines which we sourced, often many years ago en primeur, have limited stocks of different vintages in our cellar.
Low & no-alcohol wine
We carry a small range of low (under 0.5% ABV) and no alcohol white, red and sparkling wines suitable for drivers and even children. We find at family celebratory events for example that well behaved!)children can take part in the toasts and celebrations, and enjoy participating in the adult experience with a glass of zero alcohol sparkling wine.
Bring Your Own (BYO) policy
We are pleased to allow BYO. Corkage starts at £25 plus service for 75cl still wines. We don't allow BYO for wines on our list, so please notify us in advance what you intend to bring. We expect please one purchase of wine from us for every two BYO that you or your group bring. Zero or low alcohol doesn't count for this but half bottles including dessert wines and half bottles of champagne do. Please see our Terms & Conditions link on the booking page for our full policy, which applies to all wines and drinks.
Cocktails and aperitifs
We can usually make our range of cocktails for pre-meal drinks, including non-alcoholic. We stock several different gins, malts and whiskies, vodkas etc along with a small range of fine sherries, ports, armagnacs and cognacs. Please note we are a fine dining restaurant not a bar and so our cocktail range is not huge.
Beer & lager
Whilst as a fine dining restaurant we mainly provide wine, we also carry a range of craft beers, including a Session, IPA and Köln German style brewed in the excellent Tonbridge Brewery, only 2 miles away in the village of East Peckham - as local as it can get. This is why we have partnered with them along with the fact that their quality is superb.
For low or no alcohol beer, we usually have Leffe zero, which tastes very similar to the quite strong Leffe 8%, and sometimes other choices.
Cider & fine cider
We have also partnered with Kentish Pip, operating from a farm near Canterbury in Kent. We stock both their regular premium craft ciders, and some of their fine ciders, more similar to wines, being aged on the lees and in bottle. One of these is a very interesting still cider under cork, called Jersey Chisel. We also usually stock in season their hedgerow berry cider, pink and low in alcohol for a cider.
Juices
In season we make our own apple juice from trees in our orchard. We wash and juice the apples the day we pick them. Juice we serve may be either fresh during the picking season or pasteurised in house otherwise. No sulphites or preservatives are added to this natural organic product, except a little vitamin C to aid clarification. We make special organic health drinks and smoothies for our guests sometimes as an addition to our menus - usually seasonal and depends what we have in our kitchen garden on the day.
Water
We stock a range of quality waters in glass bottles, both still and sparking. This includes Eifel still and sparkling water that we bring back from Germany - so although that includes transport miles, as we go to Germany frequently there is no additional carbon footprint. We return empty bottles and crates where they are sterilised and re-used, which is greener than the much more energy intensive British system.
Tea
We have fine Shi Bui teas. Shi Bui is a Japanese phrase for "simple yet complex". We've tried numerous specialist tea suppliers and find the quality that this small family business, based in Edinburgh, provide is superior and consistent. Tea must be fresh and carefully handled by the importer and that's exactly what we get from Shi Bui. It fits nicely with our Japanese garden theme.
We sometimes offer premium Japanese loose leaf tea, imported directly from Yumoni in Japan and make in the traditional Japanese way. Because we have to import directly to get the quality we require, supply can be a little erratic. It includes a premium green matcha when available of the quality we seek.
Coffee
We primarily serve single origin freshly roasted beans, ground to order in the restaurant. We work with a small local roastery, Bean Smitten, near Bewl Water in Kent, not far from us and where we charge our electric vehicles nearby. We carry a selection of styles and types, and use our double boiler Italian Rocket espresso machine to make totally fresh perfect coffee, which we grind to order for each cup. We're fanatical about coffee quality.