What's the draw
Following a planning issue in May, Native and its team made a last-gasp, Kickstarter-assisted jump from Native's Neal's Yard site to a new space on Southwark Bridge road. The result is a large, light and airy farm-to-table restaurant where whitewashed brick walls, big windows and swaying branches of dried foliage match the urban-pastoral dishes, and an inventive, modern approach to cooking meets indigenous underdog produce like yarrow, wood pigeon and rose veal.
What to drink
There's plenty of interest on the wine list, which features a number of English names – a light-in-colour but heavy-on-red fruit pinot noir from Sixteen Ridges among them – plus biodynamic and natural wines, too. We'd definitely suggest starting with a cocktail, though, and you can't go wrong with the fresh and zingy melilot mule – made with sweet clover-infused vodka and organic ginger beer, and finished with a lip-smacking citric acid rim – or an old fashioned where spicy, woody and ever-so-slightly funky apple cider brandy meets fragrant sage.
What to eat
The menu's short, sweet and strictly seasonal (changing according to the day's deliveries), and you can opt for two or three courses or the full six-course tasting menu, all of which come with 'wasting snacks'. For the latter, think canapés made with ingredients others might chuck away – a brandade made with cod offcuts, and confit pigeon with roast potato mayo and crispy jersey potato skins. Starters are generous, though we still could have eaten two of the blushing pink wood pigeon breasts with a hazelnut crumb, a slick of tart-sweet cherry hoi sin and a splash of hazelnut milk. Carrot makes an unlikely hero for a main course, but stick with us here, because once you've tasted it Big Green Egg-roasted and slathered in a deeply aromatic hogseed vadouvan, with its tops crisped in tempura batter, you'll never look at it the humble root the same way again. And fillet of rose veal, with an intensely smokey burnt courgette purée we now want smeared on everything we eat, is deeply flavoursome but subtle with it, and a great advert for this often-unsung but super-sustainable meat. A large blob of white chocolate cremeux (think a thick, shape-holding mousse) with a clear, refreshing mugwort and whey sauce and Kentish strawberries, is a fitting way to end – tasty, pretty, and with a couple of 'WTF's that?' ingredients thrown in for good measure.
Two courses plus snacks, £32; three courses plus snacks, £40. 32 Southwark Street, SE1 1TU; eatnative.co.uk
