The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Saturday
Outdoor opportunities
Chefs have spent the past few months thinking of creative solutions to house their customers. For some, that means moving tables on to pavements or making use of gardens; others have taken a greater leap. Prawn on the Lawn, which has branches in London and Padstow, normally seats 20 covers at its Cornwall restaurant, where the front door opens on to a road.
With the one-metre rule it could host eight people – not enough to make opening worthwhile. But the husband-and-wife team behind the restaurant will open Prawn on the Farm on July 22, at Trerethern Farm around a mile away.
Co-owner Katie Toogood acknowledges the good fortune of having Ross Geach, a long-time supplier who runs the farm, receptive of the proposal, since his farm lost countless events it planned to host over the summer. “It’s going to be a full kitchen set-up in a marquee, overlooking the estuary,” she explains.
“It will be rustic, with picnic benches and a bar. We’ll still be serving local fish, lobsters, crab, oysters and mussels. There will be produce from Geach’s farm picked that morning, and local beer and wine.”
Hers isn’t the only restaurant relocating, albeit temporarily, due to the pandemic. Copenhagen’s Noma reopened in an outdoor site as a burger joint. In East London, Brat will spring up under a railway arch for the summer, while in Scotland The Courtroom at Links House Dornoch is repurposing itself as the Courtyard.
“I feel really lucky that we’ve got this option,” Toogood continues. “It’ll hopefully enable Prawn to keep going down here,” she says, while also keeping local suppliers in business. Here’s hoping for more fine weather to help.