Our Daily Team Briefing & Tastings at Brat, Mountain and Brat x Climpson's Arch

The day will usually start with early morning conversations with the chefs to see what’s come in from the fishermen and farmers to see what’s great that day.

Deciding on what we will chose to discuss with our teams is one of the joys

It’s the one of the most joyful part of being a chef and it sets the tone for the whole day. A thorough and engaged briefing with our teams, means good cooking and great service, therefore hopefully an enjoyable meal for our guests!

Our briefings will vary in focus, depending on if new dishes or an ingredient has come in that day, always paired and tasted with a wine that we would recommend to go with the particular dish / ingredient.

As we are always trying to improve and grow, different members of our talented team may take turn to discuss a particular dish on the menu and also we can talk about ways of managing our service for that particular day.

A favourite example is our fish, we pride ourselves on sourcing the best fish possible and we take our team through the variaties on the menu each day. We will prepapre and cook each one differently according to the species and the season. At Mountain we will cook leaner fish (ie Sea Bass) on our plancha, to gain a crust as it cooks quicker then rested and the fattier fish (such as Turbot) are cooked slowly over the coals to allow fat (collagen) to transform into a beautiful texture and sauce.

Whichever dish or ingredient we will be tasting in our pre service briefing will have been discussed with our wine team in the morning, allowing them time to pick a bottle to open with the team to try alongside the dish. This a moment where all of the kitchen team and front of house team will hear about the wine and why it was chosen.

As we send dishes from our kitchen, some of the finishing work can be completed by the front of house team, this one being the final olive oil over particular dishes before they are sent to guests…

A brief conversation about our Olive Oils..

We use four different varieties which have different flavour qualities that we finish each dish with…

We find that one variety is buttery (Tenuta i Bonsi, Tuscany 2024), therefore would “replace” butter, we find it works well with roasted vegetables..

Second, is more peppery (Fontodi, Chianti 2024), used to season the beef steaks

Third, citrus, vibrant and green notes (Capezzana, Tuscany 2024)…perfect for our raw fish / scallop dish

Fourth, a rounded Sicilian blend (Senia, Sicily 2024) that has all of the above and therefore can bring whole dishes together and is poured over our Olive Oil ice cream..

During the busy day in a life of a restaurant, the team briefing is a time to pause and engage before welcoming our guests. It’s important that the whole team feel that they are able to contribute and taste together, it’s a moment to ask questions and learn with no judgment.

We believe that one of the key’s to hospitality starts with the team, if they are informed, happy and confident, we hope that the guests experience this too.