“Always source locally and seasonally. Always. It doesn’t make any sense to cook or eat any other way.”

Cheddar puffs with mustard, fermented kohlrabi, and pastrami spice; prawn tartare with saffron rouille, piquillo peppers, salt and vinegar crisps, and roe; and roasted boneless duck leg with vinegar jus and smoked beet.

For years, Hartsyard was headlined by its best-in-show fried chicken. Then, in 2018, Chef Gregory Llewellyn boldly retired the comfort food from the menu and rebooted Hartsyard’s offerings with seafood and vegetables to achieve a lighter carbon footprint.

Llewellyn regularly chats to JOTO’s Wayne Hulme about sustainable fish species, and will always order in by-catch to ensure nothing goes to waste. Vegetable trimmings and offcuts are shapeshifted into vinaigrettes or preserved via the fermentation rack. The pickled kohlrabi, for instance, co-stars with addictive Cheddar puffs in a vegetarian-style Reuben sandwich. Sparkling water is on tap and straw-free, and the charming napkins from Hope For Ollie are hand-sewn by a local mother raising money to find a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which affects her son.

This level of thoughtfulness also sees a game-changing policy of splitting tips between front and back-of-house staff in the name of fairness.

“Llewellyn’s secret vice was always vegetables, and with the new menu,​ he nails his colours to the mast … The menu walks and talks like a vegetarian, without completely claiming the moniker.”

–Guy Griffin, The Real Review