Rising Sun — the kitchen

What the kitchen does

One kitchen, one pass, one board. The board is written in the morning and wiped at the end of the night, and it is the only accurate account of what the kitchen is doing today.

This page says what the kitchen is for and how it works. It deliberately does not list dishes, because a list typed once and left on a website becomes a promise the kitchen cannot keep, and the first person to notice is the one who walked up the hill for something that came off the board a fortnight ago.

The board, and why it is not here

The board is short on purpose. A small pass can cook a few things properly or many things approximately, and this one is set up for the first. What goes on it follows what came in that week and what the kitchen has prepared that morning, so it changes without notice and sometimes mid-service when something runs out.

Three practical consequences, worth knowing before you set out:

Ask at the counter and whoever is on will tell you what is on the board and what has already gone. They are reading the same board as the pass, not a printout.
If you are coming for something in particular, ring on the day rather than the week before. The answer on Tuesday is not the answer on Friday.
When the board is down to one line, the kitchen says so rather than taking an order it cannot finish.

None of that is modesty. It is the same reasoning that keeps the cellar list to three handpumps: a short thing kept honest beats a long thing kept approximately.

When the pass is on

Over lunch: The main service. Orders go to the pass from the counter, not from the table, so one of us takes it down and walks it through. Last order for the kitchen is called at the counter before the pass shuts, and it is called rather than implied.
Afternoon: The pass is shut. This is the stretch when the function room gets set and the cellar gets a second look, and trying to cook through it would mean doing all three badly.
Evening: On again, shorter than lunch, following whatever is left on the board. Some evenings the board is two lines and the kitchen says so plainly at the counter.
Exact hours: They move with the week and with the room, so they are not printed here either. Ring the house and you will be told the hour for the day you are asking about.

If you have to avoid something

Say it at the counter when you order, not afterwards. The person taking the order writes it on the ticket and walks it to the pass, and the pass answers from what it actually has: the labels and the delivery notes from that week, which are kept in the kitchen until the stock they came with is gone.

Where the kitchen is not certain, it says it is not certain. It will not guess at an ingredient to be helpful, and it will not serve something it cannot account for. If that means the answer is no for a particular dish on a particular day, the answer is no.

Feeding a booking in the room

Food for the function room is settled when the booking is taken, not on the night. The pass is small and it is already cooking for the bar side, so a room of people arriving unannounced expecting plates is the one thing it genuinely cannot absorb.

Tell us at the booking that the room wants feeding, roughly how many, and roughly when in the evening.
What the kitchen can do for a room is discussed then, against what it has coming in that week. It is a conversation at the counter, not a card.
Plates go through the hatch from the bar side if the hatch is open, or round through the door if it is not. Either way it is one of us carrying them, not a trolley left in the room.
Nothing is prepared for a number that has not been confirmed in the week before the date.

Start at taking a booking and it will be written on the same line as everything else. Written enquiries to house@dckhospitality.info are read behind the bar, usually in the afternoon.