Some lunches could happen anywhere. This is not one of them.
This September, The Greyhound returns to Marsh Island, just off West Mersea. This year, for the first time, we are doing it twice.
Two long lunches in the Packing Shed. A private tidal island, reached only by boat.
We will meet guests at the dock with a seasonal drink before boarding the boats and crossing the estuary, passing old boats, moorings, and the working edges of the shore, until Marsh Island comes into view.
On arrival, top up your glass and then a little time to walk, look out, and take in the island before lunch.
Lunch will be served in the Packing Shed, an old oyster shed shaped by weather, tide, and work. It sits on stilts, and as lunch unfolds, the tide comes in beneath your feet. You sit above it, eating, drinking, and listening to the breeze move through the room.
Adam will cook over fire. The menu will follow the coastline around us, with day boat fish, shellfish, smoke, butter, salt, sweetness, and a few things foraged from the island that morning.
Will will pour a short but exceptional list of wines. Bottles with freshness, texture, and lift. Wines for oysters, crab, flame, sea air, and the long middle of lunch.
Then the tide turns. Lunch winds down. The boats come back.
Rare, a little wild, and quietly magnificent. One we are very proud to share.