About Ember & Oak
A restaurant the size of a good idea — the table, the fire, and the people around it.
We are a grill room, a private banquet hall, and a small catering kitchen. We have been at it since 2018. This is a short note on who we are and what we believe.
The story
A room around an open fire.
Ember & Oak opened in the spring of 2018 in a converted Georgian smithy on Old Smithfield Lane. The forge had been cold for a century. We lit it again — and built a restaurant around it. The hearth is still the centre of the room, and the centre of everything we do.
The kitchen
One chef. One fire. One menu.
Donald Mart runs the pass and the grill. He trained at St. JOHN and at Asador Etxebarri in the Basque country, and he keeps a single rule: nothing leaves the kitchen that hasn't met fire or smoke. Most of it has met both.
The craft
Charcoal, oak, patience.
We burn English oak and lumpwood charcoal — never gas. The fire is lit by hand each afternoon and tended through service. Dry-aged beef hangs in our cabinet for 45 days; line-caught fish arrives the morning it's cooked. Everything else, we keep simple.
The room
Considered, never precious.
Forty-eight covers, a long bar in brass and oak, and a private hall behind the back doors. We are dressed for an occasion but never stiff. You can come for a glass of wine and a snack, or for the longest dinner of your year. Both are welcome.
No. 01
Fire over fuss
We don't dress food it doesn't need. Salt, smoke, and good timing do most of it.
No. 02
One menu, well kept
We cook a short menu properly — and change it when the season turns, not before.
No. 03
Quietly, please
Music low, lights lower. The room should help the conversation, not compete with it.