Harriet Mansell to open first permanent restaurant

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West Country-born chef and recent Great British Menu contestant Harriet Mansell is to relaunch her Lyme Regis pop-up Robin Wylde as a permanent restaurant venture next month.

Set to open within a former pottery workshop, the 32-cover restaurant will follow in a similar fashion to its first incarnation, offering a nine-course tasting experience alongside optional pairings of low intervention and West Country wines.

As is meant to be inferred by the restaurant's namesake - a pseudonym designed 'to evoke connotations of luscious and wild countryside combined with a sense of adventure and old English charm' - Mansell's culinary style takes inspiration from the natural world.

Experimentation with raw ingredients, including pickling, preserving and fermentation all play a prominent role in her cooking, which have perviously included dishes of celeriac with hazelnut, cured egg yolk and Dorset truffle; baked River Teign oyster with wild garlic and apple; and gooseberry mousse with butterscotch.

Drawing on the availability of natural local resources, the new tasting menu will change approximately every six weeks and focus on 'shining a light' on the region’s seafood, sea herbs and seaweeds.

Mansell opened the original Robin Wylde pop-up in April 2019, which was a sell-out for its entire six-month residency within Lyme Regis’ culinary events space The Pop-Up Kitchen.

Only six weeks after opening, Mansell was asked to take part in the 2020 series of the BBC's Great British Menu, where she competed in the South-West heat.