Sealed, numbered and signed by the hand that made it.
THE SMOKEHOUSE
Beechwood-smoked eel, boned warm and set in cold-pressed oil with lemon peel.
$66
Smoked eel is a food of the great river deltas — the Rhine, the Elbe, the Thames, the Po. In medieval England eel was currency: manorial rents were literally paid in 'sticks' of eels, and the Domesday Book records tens of thousands of them owed annually.
The Dutch and North German smokehouses perfected the staged hot smoke, raising the temperature in steps so the skin sets before the fat renders. That staged curve is the whole technique.
Smoked eel is a Dutch national dish and a fixture of German Aalräuchereien along the Elbe. In restaurants it re-emerged through Sergio Herman at Oud Sluis, whose Zeeland cooking treated eel as a luxury on par with caviar, and through Simon Rogan's L'Enclume.
Three stages: 45°C to set, 65°C to render, 80°C to finish. Straight to 80°C and the skin splits and the fat runs out through the tear.
Boning warm within ten minutes is a race. Cold eel does not release its pin bones, and reheating it to try again ruins the texture.
Brine, hot smoke over beech
12 hours brine · 3 hours smoke
On dark bread with horseradish cream and pickled cucumber.
Every defining ingredient, named: who grew or caught it, where, when it was taken, what it has meant to the people who kept it, and what it does for you.
Autumn 2025
Cut 2023
Nutrition figures are typical values for the ingredient itself and are given as a guide, not as a dietary claim. Harvest dates refer to the batch printed on your lid.
