The Black River Inn introduces new style of cooking

The Black River Inn, Black Torrington, has revamped their kitchen during lockdown and co-owner, Gill Churchill, is here to tell you more…

“Alex and I have been here at The Black River Inn now for three years (this June). And even before we came here, through our various places of work together we have always talked about a desire to cook solely on wood fuel, not only because of a love of this way of cooking (from Alex’s point of view, it was more interesting, plus added an element to the food), but also would mean we would be able to eliminate fossil fuels here at the pub.

“During the first two lockdowns last year we started to take this idea to perhaps a bit more by looking into how we would do it. Over Christmas 2020, once we had closed the doors (little did we know then that closing our doors on Christmas Eve would mean we wouldn’t be reopening until this week) we decided to peruse this idea a little further. This was mainly due to the dull January feeling everyone had. We couldn’t go anywhere, we had been reverted back to takeaways again for a third time etc. Over January we cooked once a week over fire and ethical charcoal for our takeaways while we converted our gas fuelled kitchen to the solid wood hearth it is today. Each week our takeaway menu during lockdown three took a theme from a different country around the world. And we used this to practise how to cook on wood whilst getting inspiration on foods from around the world.

“Now with reopening we can’t wait to showcase not only the fact we are cooking on sustainably sourced wood from just three miles up the road, but that we have changed the menu to be a focus on a tapas style menu; which offers a small plates, full of flavour, using locally sourced produce, in season so at their best. Along with, of course some key main dishes. All of which are now cooked here on wood!”

The Black River Inn reopens May 20th. www.blackriverinn.co.uk