The hearth is a real fireplace, built hip height with standing grills, and it is the middle of the room and the middle of the menu. Danielle Alvarez opened it in 2016 after Chez Panisse and The French Laundry and left in 2022, but the thing she built stayed: close relationships with farmers, and produce cooked simply over wood.
WHY IT’S WORTH IT
1A hip-height wood hearth in the middle of the dining room, not hidden in a kitchen.
2Built on the Chez Panisse method: growers first, then cook what turns up.
3On Oxford Street, so it pairs with the Paddington galleries in an afternoon.