The open hearth at Ember and Sage, logs burning behind a long table set with glasses and a flatbread

Est. 2019 · Corner of Alder & Fennel · A fictional restaurant

Ember & Sage

One wood-fired hearth, a market list that changes every week, and a corner table that feels like the neighbourhood's living room.

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Dinner
Tue – Sun
Hearth
Oak & fruitwood
Address
41 Alder Street

Our story

We built the room around the fire, and everything else followed.

Ember & Sage began as a Tuesday supper club in the back of a shuttered tile works on Quarry Lane. Chef Rosa Adeyemi-Clark had spent nine years cooking on gas and wanted, stubbornly, to cook on wood instead — so they borrowed a barrel oven, invited forty neighbours, and served one thing: flatbread pulled straight off the coals with cultured butter and a fistful of herbs. People kept coming back. By the third winter there was a waiting list on a clipboard by the door.

In 2019, Rosa and their oldest friend and co-owner Teodor Vance — a former bookseller who still writes the wine list by hand — took the lease on the corner of Alder and Fennel, a former dairy with tall windows on two sides. They knocked out the back wall and built a single brick hearth where the cold room used to be. It is the only heat source in the kitchen. Everything on the menu is either cooked in it, over it, beside it in the falling heat, or cured in the smoke it leaves behind. When the fire is lit at two in the afternoon, the whole room starts to smell like dinner.

The rest is the neighbourhood's doing. Produce arrives on a hand cart from the growers at Quarry Green three mornings a week, which is why the menu is short and why it changes when the weather does. Regulars have their own hooks by the door. The corner two-top is unofficially spoken for on Thursdays. We are, deliberately, a small place — thirty-eight seats, one fire, no second sitting rushed out the door.

— Rosa & Teodor

The brick hearth mouth glowing with a banked oak fire, a flatbread resting on the oven floor
The hearth is lit at 2pm and banked down at midnight. It has not been cold since the week we opened.

Menu highlights

Cooked over oak, written in pencil

A snapshot of this week's list. The menu changes with the season — and often with what the growers at Quarry Green bring us on the cart — so dishes come and go. Prices include service.

Small plates

  • Hearth Flatbread

    £9

    Blistered on the coals, cultured butter, wild oregano, sea salt.

  • Charred Little Gems

    £11

    Sage cream, toasted hazelnut, burnt lemon, a lot of black pepper.

  • Ember Beets

    £10

    Buried in the ashes overnight, smoked yoghurt, sunflower dukkah.

  • Fennel & Blood Orange

    £10

    Cracked green olives, chilli, mint, cold-pressed oil from the market.

Hearth mains

  • Whole Roast Crown Prince Squash

    £24

    Sage butter, barley cooked in its own juices, pickled walnut.

  • Coal-Roast Lamb Shoulder

    £58

    Six hours beside the fire, ember onions, salsa verde. To share, for two.

  • Fire-Baked Bean Stew

    £21

    Cranberry beans, late tomato, smoked paprika, torn hearth bread.

  • Salt-Crust Sea Bream

    £29

    Cracked at the table, burnt lemon, herb oil, charred greens.

Desserts

  • Pear & Almond Tart

    £11

    Brown-butter caramel, crème fraîche, pears roasted in the falling heat.

  • Burnt Honey Custard

    £9

    Ember-toasted oats, a spoonful of thick cream, wildflower honey.

  • Woodsmoke Ice Cream

    £8

    Churned with smoked milk, new-season olive oil, flaked salt.

The menu changes with the season and is rewritten most weeks. Tell us about allergies when you book and the kitchen will cook around them — there is always a full vegetarian run of the menu, and most of it can be made vegan.

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Opening hours

The fire is lit at two.

We are closed on Mondays — that is market-prep, dough and bookkeeping day. The kitchen stops a little before the room does, so last orders are earlier than closing time.

  • Walk-ins are welcome at the eight-seat hearth counter.
  • Sunday is one long lunch service; the lamb usually runs out by four.
  • Last kitchen orders are listed below as kitchen closes.
DayRoomKitchen closes
MondayClosed—
Tuesday5:00pm – 11:00pm10:00pm
Wednesday5:00pm – 11:00pm10:00pm
Thursday5:00pm – 11:30pm10:30pm
Friday12:00pm – 12:00am11:00pm
Saturday12:00pm – 12:00am11:00pm
Sunday12:00pm – 5:00pm4:00pm

Find us

On the corner, under the striped awning

Ember & Sage
41 Alder Street (corner of Fennel Street)
Quarry Green, Old Kiln Quarter
Northgate NG7 4QS
By tram
Lines 14 & 26 to Fennel Street, then a two-minute walk downhill past the old tile works.
By bus
The 9, 31 and 88 stop on Bellhouse Road; cross at the lights by the green.
Parking
Kiln Yard car park is 300m east, free after 6pm. Alder Street itself is permit-only and very narrow — please don't.
Access
Step-free entrance on Fennel Street, accessible WC, and two tables with room for a wheelchair. Tell us when you book.
Hand-drawn block plan of the fictional Old Kiln Quarter showing Ember and Sage on the corner of Alder and Fennel streets, with the tram stop, Kiln Yard car park and Quarry Green marked
A hand-drawn plan of the block. Everything on it — the streets, the tram, the restaurant — is invented.

Reservations

Book the corner table

We hold a third of the room back for walk-ins each night, but the rest goes quickly — especially Thursday to Saturday. Bookings open eight weeks ahead.

  • Tables are yours for two hours; the lamb needs three, so tell us and we'll make room.
  • Parties of seven or more: drop us a line and we'll cook a set menu at the long table.
  • Allergies, birthdays, a chair that needs moving — put it in the note and we'll sort it.

Or call the restaurant on +44 20 7946 0041, Tue–Sun from 3pm.

Reserve a table

Fictional restaurant, fictional bookings — nothing is sent anywhere.

You'll get a confirmation on screen straight away. This is a demonstration site for an invented restaurant.