STARK

25/07/2025

22/05/2025

22/02/2025

We’re over the moon with the review of Stark in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/feb/21/stark-mersea-island-essex-grace-dent-restaurant-review

Fun fact: this photo has caused quite a stir in the comments section on the review 🤭 Just to make you all aware, baseball caps and large jackets are perfectly acceptable to wear at Stark, we want our customers to feel comfortable and relaxed 😉

10/02/2025

It’s official: we’ve retained the Michelin Star we earned in Broadstairs and brought it to Mersea Island so we’re now the only restaurant in Essex with a Michelin Star and the first for Mersea Island and Colchester 👌🏼 🥂 I’m so proud of Ben and everything he’s achieved so far, as well as excited for his vision for the restaurant going forward and I can’t wait to see what’s to come for us in my home town.

29/01/2025

We’re a little bit out in the sticks now on Mersea Island, compared to the five minute walk to/from the train station of our previous location but you can still come and enjoy the wine flight at Stark by staying at Mersea Barns Glamping right next door to us. Only a few seconds walk away, the glamping site offers shepherd’s huts and safari tents to stay in and we’re currently working together to offer our joint customers discounts with us both when booking a two night stay and a meal at with us on one of those nights.

For more information, email [email protected] or [email protected]

10/12/2024

We’re getting closer to the voucher cut off for Christmas presents this year so if you’d like to buy vouchers for someone to come and visit Stark please email Sophie at [email protected] and they can either be collected from the restaurant or posted out to you. We also have the last batch of our Stark books available to purchase for £30 if you’d like to introduce someone to us with a smaller gift. The book tells the story of how we came to open Stark with a little backstory and then recipes Ben has used over the past eight years.

02/10/2024

One of our snacks at the moment: anchovies with tartar sauce 🤤 They’re going down very well with pre drinks 🤭 We have some availability left for this week if you want to treat yourself while the weather is trying to make us miserable!

https://www.opentable.co.uk/r/stark-colchester

17/06/2024

Bookings for our new site in East Mersea are now live and available from 3rd July for the following 90 days. Our concept is still the same as it was in Broadstairs -serving one, set tasting menu. Therefore, we're still unable to cater for any allergies or dietary requirements unfortunately but we're very excited to be able to bring Stark to Soph's hometown of Mersea Island and we look forward to meeting some new faces.

https://www.opentable.co.uk/r/stark-colchester

06/06/2024

Bookings are finally live on OpenTable for our new site in Mersea from July! Sorry it's taken us so long to get our act together and there's still a few "Stark Broadstairs" errors floating around in the link but that's just a wording issue that the tech team are hopefully sorting in the next few days.... All bookings will definitely be in Mersea Island, Essex! https://www.opentable.co.uk/r/stark-broadstairs