Husk

Sooner or later, the farmland-hugging lane you’re following at a rural pace through east Suffolk will drop you (if you've booked ahead) at an 16-seat supper club run by chefs Joey O’Hare and Katy Taylor. It happens every Friday and Saturday evening in a renovated barn on the couple’s homestead. Cocktails at 7pm are often seasonal versions of egg white-topped sours (perhaps wintry damson or summery apple and elderflower), with snacks such as a punchy little pissaladière tart or seedy crackers topped with smoked cod’s roe from Orford-based Pinney’s. After that, a summer visit might mean a Suffolk take on salade lyonnaise, with 'jammy' eggs from the home flock tucked up with just-picked leaves with colour-popping borage, nasturtium and marigold – plus some home-cured pancetta crumb for savoury texture. Husk's signature ‘sour-da’ (sourdough meets soda bread) comes oven-warm with Bungay butter. To follow, there's vitello tonnato, Suffolk-style: in the O’Hare-Taylor world this means Blythburgh pork tenderloin with a sauce not of tuna but smoked mackerel (Pinney’s again). The dish is bright with pink gooseberries, brine-fermented plum olives for gherkin-like acidity, and peppery nasturtium. It’s clever, fresh and fun – a standout. During other seasons, game takes centre stage, perhaps a piece of wild venison fillet with cauliflower and a wild garlic/spinach pesto, or line-caught sea bass with courgette agrodolce and oregano potatoes. Sprightly gooseberry fool rounds things off in summer, topped with gooseberry sherbet and lavender shortbread to rein in the sharp fruitiness, but in cooler months a memorable whey caramel custard tart with plum ice cream, or blood-orange cake with savoury St Jude’s ice cream might be served. This is classy, contemporary cooking that has no need to break boundaries or challenge. And to drink? Katy Taylor might suggest something from the super-short list of low-intervention, often organic wines paired with the month’s menu – a 2022 ‘Skyphos’ Assyrtiko from the Artisans Vignerons de Naoussa cooperative in northern Greece, maybe.