Popular Crouch End Supper Club to Open First Restaurant

Crouch End supper club Chicken of the Woods will open a permanent restaurant, as reported by Hot Dinners. The restaurant will be called Through the Woods.

Chef Chris Slaughter, formerly of Smokehouse, told Eater London: “Through the Woods is back to basics for me, using the best of whats on our doorstep, cutting down on food waste, promoting meat reduction and just as important a genuine fun and friendly place to have supper.”

In practice, this means that the 16 seat restaurant on Crouch End’s Middle Lane — with “nowhere to hide, just me, a couple of hobs, and an oven,” will serve largely vegetarian food, but Slaughter also says there will be a “single high-welfare meat option.” This approach is very much in line with an assortment of modern British restaurants across the capital: Salon in Brixton, Perilla in Stoke Newington, Cub in Hoxton, Lupins in Flat Iron Square.

Some dishes: fennel poached courgettes — possibly reminiscent of the mushy courgettes served at St. John — garden tart and cheese custard, and lavender with frame honey and raspberries, will form part of a £40 set menu served Thursday through Sunday. The ex-Smokehouse chef and his former supper club partner James Galton would partner with different wine suppliers on a monthly basis for Chicken of the Woods; Slaughter also told Eater London that he has turned his garden into an allotment, with local producers supplying a high proportion of ingredients too.

Celebrated restaurateur Richard Corrigan recently claimed that Crouch End is cool again: Slaughter’s supper could be another string to its bow.

Through the Woods, 212 Middle Lane, London, N8 7LA, will open 2 August.