Part of the award-winning Salt Yard Group restaurants, Ember Yard in the heart of Soho has launched a new take on the much-loved Sunday Roast.
The Salt Yard Group of restaurants are known for their tapas focused menus, small sharing plates rooted in Spanish culinary tradition where a variety of appetisers and snacks are enjoyed alongside drinks in a social communal setting. Delicious small plates from seafood and meats to vegetables and cheese designed to be enjoyed in combination offering a diverse range of flavours and textures in one meal. This concept is familiar all over the Mediterranean, in Italy for example, this way of eating is called Cicchetti and in Greece, Meze. Salt Yard restaurants mainly feature a fusion of Italian and Spanish tapas but have recently launched at Ember Yard Soho, a new Asado Domingo lunch meaning “Sunday Lunch” in Spanish.
A delicious selection of meats and sides created by Executive Chef Luksz Kielbasinski with a selection of wine pairings and cocktails. The traditional Sunday lunch is something that conjures up warm childhood memories where my mum would prepare a delicious beef, lamb or chicken roast. Her roast potatoes were and still are legendary. Who doesn’t love crispy roast potatoes, tender slices of beef and vegetables, not the soggy kind but vibrant al dente veg with lashings of unctuous gravy and maybe even a Yorkshire pud or three. This was my typical Sunday, and I looked forward to it so much despite the love I had for mum’s delicious Cypriot meals. She saved those elaborate labour-of-love Greek Cypriot dishes for weekend family gatherings and served simple wholesome Cypriot food mid-week. This is the ethos behind Ember Yard’s Spanish and Italian inspired sharing plates, a place to enjoy traditional food in family friendly surroundings so I was really looking forward to their reimagined Asado Domingo Sunday lunch.
Located mid-way between Soho and Oxford Circus, Ember Yard is a restaurant which reminds me very much of an Englishman’s smoking lounge, the aesthetic is moody but inviting, deep saturated colours like charcoal and olive blend harmoniously, I felt a real warmth and comfort the moment I entered the restaurant.
There are two floors, downstairs is the Ember Bar, an uber cool subterranean space to enjoy a creative list of cocktails and drinks over tapas and is definitely giving off a speakeasy bar vibe. Upstairs, the main restaurant combines elements of classic sophistication, a relaxed yet refined atmosphere evoking the ambience of an upscale private club. Olive leather and velvet banquettes and deep armchairs look stunning against the dark herringbone parquet floor, high tables with barstools, brass drop lighting and wood panelling.
The idea behind Asado Domingo lunch is to a create a communal meal celebrating meat, apologies to all vegetarians! What’s so special about the Asado Domingo lunch is that it uses live-fire cooking methods, so everything is cooked over an open flame using wood and charcoal embers. It’s an ancient cooking technique that lends the most beautiful flavour infusing meat, fish and vegetables with that deep but delicate smoky aroma emphasising the simplicity and authenticity of cooking over natural heat.
Asado Domingo Menu
35-day dry aged sirloin from Herefordshire
Hampshire x Duroc presa from Sussex
Slow cooked feather blade from Dunluce, Northern Ireland
Iberico pork fat roast potatoes
Chargrilled hispi cabbage & seasonal greens
Granny Smith apple purée & horseradish Chantilly
Homemade focaccia with sea salt & rosemary
Red wine gravy
Wines to complement the menu are available in particular the Cabernet Sauvignon Domain Des Tourelles, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon is recommended – a deep ruby red with aromas of cherries, cedar, rosemary and cloves.
There is a comprehensive list of fun cocktails, I opted for the Berwick Bramble cocktail for its autumnal vibes, this was a strawberry infused gin with St Germain liqueur, apple and lime juice. I adore cocktails so it’s always a hard choice. The Passion Yard, a take on the sensual but naughty sounding, Pornstar Martini was hard to avoid as was the Ember Garden which is a heady mix of lavender syrup, gin, Midori, a melon liqueur with cucumber and thyme sounded lovely but I’m saving that one for another time.
First to arrive was the focaccia which I really loved, it was so crispy, almost deep fried with just the right amount of rosemary and sea salt, it seemed to bring out the flavours of my Berwick Bramble cocktail, it was the perfect pre-lunch appetizer.
What I didn’t expect was the amazing meat feast that followed, it’s definitely the highlight of the Asado Domingo lunch with mountains of pork and beef staring me in the face, and it looked so good. Slices of tender succulent Hereford sirloin of beef and Duroc Pork plus a slow cooked feather blade cut of beef which was my favourite.
The Duroc breed combines the best attributes of various pig breeds resulting in meat so juicy and incredibly flavoured. It’s a little bit darker than traditional pork but highly valued and high in protein. The sirloin of beef slices complemented the pork beautifully, it didn’t fight or overpower the much milder flavour of pork. It was super succulent and cooked to perfection but for me, the best part of the Asado Domingo lunch was the feather blade beef. It was almost like a ragu, a canon of the most intensely flavoured, tender melt-in-the-mouth beef, there was such an incredibly rich and deep flavour which was further enhanced by the rich, glossy red wine gravy. It just brought everything together so beautifully with its deep and savoury flavours.
To cut through the richness of the meats, a vibrant slightly sharp Granny Smith apple purée and a rather unusual horseradish cream were the perfect additions. Horseradish is usually quite hot, not quite as hot as wasabi which travels up your nose and hits you like a hammer, this was really delicate thanks to the Chantilly cream it was combined with.
The potatoes were crispy and moreish, and the vegetables were a lovey mix of savoy cabbage, leeks and garden peas plus a quarter chargrilled hispi cabbage which I felt could have done with a touch more cooking. Missing were Yorkshire puddings which I think would have been the perfect accompaniment rather than the stuffing balls simply because there was already enough meat. I just felt the light crispy Yorkshires bathed in the yummy gravy would have elevated this super delicious Sunday lunch even more.
Space for dessert? Always! I hardly ever miss dessert, and I was rather quite full by this time so as enticing as cinnamon sugar churros & chocolate sauce sounded, I settled on Vanilla affogato al caffe. Creamy vanilla ice cream in a bath of intense aromatic coffee. I think this is the perfect dessert when you’re craving something sweet but can’t handle a proper dessert. Chocolate mousse with olive oil and smoked sea salt was definitely interesting, the final choice was a coffee mille-feuille with strawberries.
