CLAY&EMBER

The Old Pottery000
The dining room at Clay & Ember before service

Est. 2016 — The Old Pottery

CLAY & EMBER — A wood-fired kitchen and coffee room.

  • DINING
  • COFFEE
  • CONVERSATION
Fig. 01The room, 18:20
02The idea

We cook over wood because it is harder. It asks for attention at every stage — the fire, the timing, the moment something comes off the bars. That attention is the only thing on the plate that you cannot buy in.

01LOCAL.
02SEASONAL.
03HANDCRAFTED.
04INTENTIONAL.
03The experience
morning
0108:00

MORNING

The ovens have been on since five

Laminated pastry, the first loaves out of the deck oven, and a room that still smells of last night's fire.

coffee
0210:30

COFFEE

Slow bar, no rush

Single origin poured by hand at the window counter. Stay an hour. Nobody will move you along.

lunch
0313:00

LUNCH

Written that morning

Whatever the growers sent, cooked simply over embers and shared down the length of the long table.

sunset
0417:30

SUNSET

The hour the light turns

Low sun through the west windows, amber in the glass, and the kitchen quietly changing gear.

dinner
0519:00

DINNER

Fire, and everything it touches

A shorter menu, a darker room, and the hearth doing the work it was built for.

04Signature plates
Coal-Roasted Sea Trout
01 — From the fire

Coal-Roasted Sea Trout

Laid straight onto the bars while the coals are still white. Four minutes, one turn, and nothing else asked of it.

  • Sea trout
  • Fennel
  • Brown shrimp butter
  • Charred lemon
£27From the fire
Hearth Sirloin, Bone Marrow
02 — From the fire

Hearth Sirloin, Bone Marrow

Aged five weeks on the bone, rested twice as long as it cooks, carved at the pass and finished with marrow butter.

  • 35-day sirloin
  • Bone marrow
  • Watercress
  • Burnt onion
£34From the fire
Burnt Leeks, Hazelnut
03 — Small plate

Burnt Leeks, Hazelnut

Buried whole in the embers until the outer leaves are carbon. What survives inside is sweet, silken, almost custard.

  • Ash-roasted leek
  • Brown butter
  • Hazelnut
  • Aged vinegar
£10Small plate
Buckwheat Pancakes
04 — Morning

Buckwheat Pancakes

A batter started the night before, left to sour slowly, cooked in cast iron until the edges lace and crisp.

  • Buckwheat
  • Whipped honey butter
  • Poached quince
  • Toasted oat
£12Morning
Raspberry & Brown Butter Cake
05 — Sweet

Raspberry & Brown Butter Cake

Butter cooked until it smells of hazelnut, folded through a loose sponge, served warm enough to slump on the plate.

  • Brown butter
  • Raspberry
  • Crème fraîche
  • Vanilla
£9Sweet
Smoked Old Fashioned
06 — After dark

Smoked Old Fashioned

Stirred over a single block, trapped under glass with oak smoke, and opened in front of you at the table.

  • Rye whiskey
  • Burnt sugar
  • Oak smoke
  • Orange oil
£13After dark
05Anatomy of a plate

One slice of bread, a fire, and the discipline to stop there. Explore what is actually on it.

Five points on the plate. Hover one — or tap, on a phone — to see what it is and why it is there.

Ember toast, seen from above
The plate everything started with
06The menu

What follows is a sample. The card changes with the growers, the season, and what the fire is good for that week.

  • Ember Toast
  • Baked Eggs, Slow Peppers
  • Buckwheat Pancakes
  • The Long Breakfast
  • Morning Pastry
  • Espresso
  • Cortado
  • Filter, Pour Over
  • Cold Brew, Sixteen Hours
  • Ember Mocha
  • Charred Bread & Whipped Cod Roe
  • Burnt Leeks, Hazelnut
  • The Board
  • Autumn Squash, Sage
  • Green Plate
  • Hearth Sirloin, Bone Marrow
  • Coal-Roasted Sea Trout
  • Hand-Rolled Pici
  • Fire-Baked Celeriac
  • Pork, Quince, Mustard
  • Burnt Honey Custard
  • Raspberry & Brown Butter Cake
  • Chocolate, Olive Oil, Salt
  • Cheese, Three Ways
  • Smoked Old Fashioned
  • Kiln Spritz
  • Skin-Contact White
  • House Red, Carafe
  • Seeded Lemonade

VE VEGAN · V VEGETARIAN · GF GLUTEN FREE · N CONTAINS NUTS. PLEASE TELL US ABOUT ALLERGIES — THE KITCHEN HANDLES ALL MAJOR ALLERGENS.

07The slow bar

One machine, one grinder, and a bench angled so you can watch the pour instead of someone’s back.

The blend the room is built on. Thick, sweet, and forgiving with milk.

Espresso
Origin
House blend — Brazil & Ethiopia
Roast
Medium
Method
18g in, 38g out
Notes
Cocoa · Dried fig · Brown sugar
08The space

A hundred years of clay dust, one four-storey chimney, and as little else as we could get away with. The building did most of the work — we mainly took things out.

the counter

01 / 03 — Ground floor — all day

THE COUNTER

Walk in, order at the bench, sit where you like.

the long bar

02 / 03 — Evening — from 17:30

THE LONG BAR

Twelve stools, low light, and the last orders of the night.

the back room

03 / 03 — Private — up to 18

THE BACK ROOM

Behind the old kiln door, for tables too big to seat out front.

09Behind the pass

The room opens at eight. The work starts at four. What follows is most of the day nobody sees.

The levain is fed
04:10

The levain is fed

Marek is in before the street lights go off. The deck oven takes two hours to come up.

First trays out
07:00

First trays out

Laminated dough that was rolled and rested yesterday goes in cold and comes out shattering.

Prep, in silence
10:15

Prep, in silence

Everything for lunch is cut in the two hours before the room fills. It is the quietest part of the day.

The counter fills
12:30

The counter fills

Whatever has not sold by three becomes tomorrow's ember toast. Nothing is thrown away.

Second seating
19:40

Second seating

Four on the line, one on the fire. Hana calls the pass and plates every dish that leaves it.

10Who cooks
Hana Mori, Chef & Co-founder
Hana MoriSince 2016

“Cook one thing properly. Then stop.”

Hana spent eleven years in kitchens that plated with tweezers before deciding she wanted to cook with her hands again.

She found the old pottery works in the winter of 2015 — no gas line, one enormous chimney, and a kiln floor that had been holding heat for a century. She kept the chimney.

Everything on the menu passes over fire at some point. That constraint, she says, is the whole idea.

Chef & Co-founder

Hana

Idris Vale, Head of Coffee & Co-founder

Idris Vale

Head of Coffee & Co-founder

Idris built the slow bar himself out of the kiln's old loading bench, angled so you can watch the pour rather than the barista's back.

Marek Sol, Head Baker

Marek Sol

Head Baker

Marek starts at four. By the time the doors open the deck oven has already done its best work.

11Our story
The pottery works, before anything was moved
The pottery works, before anything was moved
Winter2015
The first levain, fed daily since
The first levain, fed daily since
OpenedMarch 2016
Nine tables became twenty-two
Nine tables became twenty-two
12From the room

We came for coffee at eleven and were still there at four. Nobody hurried us, nobody cleared the table twice. That almost never happens any more.

Amara O.Sunday lunch — table 9
01 / 04
13Reservations

Up to eight online. Larger tables, the back room, and anything unusual — ring us and we will sort it.

Date
—
Guests
—
Time
—

Choose a date

01 / 05

August 2026

MONDAYS ARE COUNTER ONLY · SUNDAY IS ONE LONG LUNCH

Make a choice to continue
14Visit

The old pottery is set back from the street behind a brick arch. If you reach the canal you have gone too far.

ARDEN ROWFOUNDRY STKILN LANETHE CUTCLAY & EMBER

Address

14 Kiln Lane
The Old Pottery
Arden Quarter AR2 6QN

Opening hours

  • MON08:00 — 16:00
  • TUE08:00 — 23:00
  • WED08:00 — 23:00
  • THU08:00 — 23:00
  • FRI08:00 — 00:00
  • SAT09:00 — 00:00
  • SUN09:00 — 17:00

The kitchen stops an hour before close. Coffee and the counter run all day, every day.

16Elsewhere
@clayandember
First tray out. 07:02.
First tray out. 07:02.
Sixteen hours, one block.
Sixteen hours, one block.
Warm cake weather.
Warm cake weather.
Long table, long lunch.
Long table, long lunch.
It is only toast. It is not only toast.
It is only toast. It is not only toast.
Under glass.
Under glass.
Fed every day since 2016.
Fed every day since 2016.
Buried in the embers.
Buried in the embers.

Est. 2016 — The Old Pottery

Seven days, from eight in the morning. The fire is lit by five.

Or call +44 20 7946 0318