28 Market Place

31/07/2023

The chef

As Somerton lad originally, I used waiter & wash up at the original “market bar and bistro” Bill and Elaine even allowed me on the bar (once)
I then started cooking and worked in some prestigious country house hotels before setting off for Sydney to work in some top restaurants, then on to a year or so in Tokyo where I fell in love with a sharing style of dining and then a year in Hong Kong followed by one more in london. I then moved back southwest and started cooking with the incredible local produce we are blessed with. That in a round about way brings us to right now. So thrilled to be able to cook for our guests on the very spot that I decided I wanted to be a chef is a very special feeling.

Please watch out for our posts in the coming days about the staff positions we have available. Thanks to the people who have been in touch already. We will get back to you shortly.

Thanks for the support so far, we are so happy to have your support

Henry.

18/04/2023

07/04/2023

It is with the heaviest of hearts that we have to tell you that 28, the bakery and the wine shop will not be opening again. We did all we could until the very end but it just wasn’t enough. Thank you all, for the good times, the services filled with love and joy, your company and your custom. We are eternally grateful to you all. To those of you worried about your deposits and vouchers, please rest assured you will be reimbursed. But please can you give us the time we need to look after our staff first. We will get to you as soon as we can and we’re working as hard as we can to get to you.

To those of you booked this weekend, what can we say? It’s your Easter weekend and we cannot tell you how sorry we are that we couldn’t serve you. We know just how many of you we are disappointing. If we could have done anything to change that, we would have done it. We are so sorry.

We will doing a discounted wine sale tomorrow from 10am to clear our wine stock. Please come along, we would love to see you to say goodbye.

Over and out, Somerton. We will miss you so very, very much.

TEAM 28

24/03/2023

Elton John has joined us in the building. “How did you manage it?” We hear you all clamouring to ask. Well, we shall tell you dear readers.

Sir Elton John arrives complete. A show on a plate, insinuating that you must know everything it has to offer. You smile, comfortable you know what this guy is all about. He’s a showman, a performer. With this guy on the stage you know it’s going to be the night you had hoped for. And you’d be right, to a point. And then you’d be wrong.

The sophistication is not in the showmanship of a well practised expert. It’s in its complexity.

Its rooty beginnings are humbling, the parsley root nodding to the purple sprouting broccoli. It begins in a stable way. But it starts to ignite as you fall into it. The Parmesan gnocchi spins a mildly acidic twist, rallying against the richness of the jus and the buttery parsley root purée.

Then, the piece you’ve been saving, your “rocketman” of the night, the confit chicken thigh cigar, falls to its knees before you. It’s crispy shell the perfect disguise to it’s gentle herby centre.

This dish’s greatness is built upon it’s divine quest to be ordinary and yet at the same time, everything. It honours the ordinary in the exquisitely different. It is no coincidence that on the night this first graced our menu, no less than six of our diners approached the pass to speak to Mr Chef Matt to demand “how” how he had done what he had to them, for they had never known a chicken dish like this one. Come and see what we mean.

18/03/2023

Let me introduce to Sir Michael Parkinson. Our latest celebrity on the menu is our Pickled Cornish mackerel with smoked eel, oyster cream, pink fir potato, apple and cucumber.

How? Why is a mackerel dish deserving of such status? I’ll tell you why dearest readers…because it’s a British institution. Because of the memories it gives you, the decades it drags you through. Like Sir Michael the mackerel pretends not to be the star of the show. It lets its guests do the talking as they lounge on the sofa. It gently draws the best, most juicy bits out of all that surround it. It lets the Smoked eel croquette think that it’s gritty past with Juan is all that anyone wants from the show. At the same time, little miss cucumber believes with her whole heart that her young, wholesome freshness that makes every heart race towards spring, is what the audience is really after. The pink fir potatoes in their meaningful affair with the oyster cream, drag you towards the summer months. To call it a potato salad would be laughably inadequate but it does nod to the essence of the affair. They too think their union is what it’s all about tonight.

But just like Sir Michael Parkinson, the modest mackerel is what you really turn up for, but what you get out of the experience with the other ingredients is a delight and a surprise. It’s the consummate talk show host.

Like the mackerel, Sir Michael Parkinson is also a fan of the water, he met Michel Roux, who was to become one of his dear friends whilst messing about on the river. Whilst there is no evidence that our mackerel has ever owned a Michelin star restaurant like Sir Michael, this particular dish would hold its own in one.

09/03/2023

Meet Helena Bonham-Carter, the new kid on the menu. This baby is confident. She looks stylish rather than fashionable but not in a Chanel suit kind of way, she’s more of a fashionista, if this dish could shop, she’d shop at Ganni and smile a lot while she did it. When you first look at her, you think you know her. You think you understand the flavour profiles and how they’re going to play out on your tongue. But you’d be wrong. Like Helena she’s complex and deep. As soon as you start you realise your mistake. The layers are addictive, the egg draws the French asparagus into its clutches by weighing it down with the creamy celeriac. Then the celeriac crisps kick off, bringing a sweetness and light to the party and just when you could accuse her of being pleasant she socks you with a meaty punch from the Westcombe speck and pulls your chin up some picketed shallots. She’s familiar, addictive, homely and wise all at the same time, if she were a perfume she’d be Fracas. But she’s not, she’s an actress and a thespian so she’s Helena Bonham-Carter. Come and be introduced…

08/03/2023

Today is International Women’s Day, and prepping this post made me think of a rendition from Barack Obama. He and Michelle had returned to Chicago for a visit and they stopped to have supper at a pizza restaurant that was run by an ex-boyfriend of Michelle’s from her uni time. Barack commented how different her life would have been if she’d married him and she responded “my life wouldn’t be different at all, he’d be President of the United States of America”. And whilst 28 “may” never make it to be President of the USA it is pretty special. Some of our 28 heroines you know, some you don’t.

1 Gemma, to know her is to love her. 2. Hanne and Ruby half of the girl power in the kitchen. 3. Squad rules, Rachel, Grace, Grace, Evie and Charlotte, looks like we’re choreographing a service flash dance (should we??). 4. Scraps time, Charlotte, Grace, Rachel, Adi & Grace. Missing but just as important: Polina, Tatiana, Lulu, Jojo, Natalia & Belle.

As Michelle wrote to Lily Collins “Here's to strong women, may we know them, may we be them, may we raise them.”

And also p.s…..running a restaurant is legit harder that running the USA. They only have to win their public over in a five day period once every few years. We have to nail it 5 days every WEEK…just pointing that out Barack….