the menu.

summer means salads, and something bright and light. instead of couscous we crush milho painço, millet, a grain Portugal grew long before maize, until it flakes like a tabbouleh. the idea came from the Brazilian corn couscous Jéssica makes for staff meal.

beetroot, at its sweetest now, salted and aged a week for chew and mineral depth. blackberries cooked down into a tart, deep sauce that pulls the salt back into fruit. an almond and macadamia cream, a herb salad, flowers. colour and freshness at their peak, before the menu turns rich.

the first heritage pulse of the menu. chickling vetch, an ancient Portuguese bean somewhere between chickpea and lupin, soft and mild and glad to take on spice; we shape it into a falafel. beneath it, coração de boi tomatoes at the peak of the season, pressed into a clear water packed with their own umami.

tahini mayonnaise with black and white sesame gives a gentle bitterness; a red currant chutney, sharpened with ginger, gives the sweet-sour lift. fennel and flowers to finish. it sets the summer register at once: clean, acidic, colourful.

the bridge, and the darkest passage on the menu. an al pastor idea with the meat swapped for wild leaves fried to the same gelatinous crunch; they change with what the foragers and farms bring in.

the mole is built on THIC, the cacao-free chocolate made from upcycled oat, with smoked morita and ancho beneath it. sweet, smoky and volatile against a raw green salsa and lime. it sets up the final anchor by contrast.

the indulgent one. a millionaire's shortbread told through white corn and THIC, the cacao-free chocolate, with the sweetness moving away from refined sugar and toward dried figs and dried fruit.

a thick alt-'choc' ganache, miso ice cream, popcorn, and sea salt, because sweet and salt together wake the most taste buds at once. a childhood dream on the plate.

the dessert closest to Monika's heart, and a bold one: potato in a dessert. in Poland the knedel is a lunch, a young-potato dough stuffed sweet or savoury; here the season decides the stone fruit inside, plum, apricot, whatever is ripe.

served with an almond 'sour cream', a gentle sugarcane honey glaze, and elderflower. asked once which recipe she would give away as a staple, this was Monika's answer. a soft, sweet place to end.