Chef Will Devlin to open new restaurant Birchwood in Sussex

Chef Will Devlin is to open a new restaurant named Birchwood in East Sussex on 6 October.

It will be the third site for the chef, who trained at Gordon Ramsay’s Pétrus and already runs the Small Holding kitchen and farm in Kilndown and the Curlew restaurant in Bodiam.

Birchwood sits within Flimwell Park, a 46-acre woodland development in East Sussex. The restaurant will open 8am to 4pm seven days a week and serve an all-day menu for breakfast and lunch.

As in the chef’s first two sites, dishes will champion artisan suppliers in Kent and Sussex while ingredients such as mushrooms, brambles, elderberries, wood sorrel and birch sap will be sourced from the nearby woods. Many of the vegetables, fruits and herbs used in dishes will come from the Small Holding farm, along with eggs and meat such as pork, lamb, hogget and mutton.

Dishes will include home-smoked trout, duck egg and sourdough crumpet; lamb chops and parsley dressing; and skate on the bone with new season potatoes and perry vinegar dressing.

The predominantly natural wine list sourced from nearby vineyards will complement local Kent and Sussex cheeses and home-cured charcuterie boards.

Birchwood's building has been designed with sustainability in mind. On-site solar power will be generated from 300 photo-voltaic cells located on roofs, cladding and canopies while water is heated directly by the sun using a grid of solar thermal units. Six Tesla charging points have been installed, alongside two charging points for other electric car brands.