Copper Lantern

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Lighting the fire

A signature dish, plated

Live-fire kitchen & cellar Est. 2016 Foundry Quarter

Everything you eat has met the fire.

One hearth, six metres of oak coals, and forty-two seats. We write the menu at four and cook every plate of it over open flame — no gas, no ovens, no exceptions.

Reserve a table See tonight's menu
Service is open
Burning tonight
Oak & almond
Coals lit
16:00
Last table
22:00
Tonight
7 tables left
Scroll — the room below

The fire

It has not gone out since March 2016

Copper Lantern lives in the old Vance Street foundry. We kept the flue, the brick, and the habit of keeping something burning.

There is one hearth. It is six metres long, built from firebrick salvaged when the foundry came down, and it is the only heat source in the kitchen — no gas rings, no induction, no ovens. Everything you are served has sat over coals, beside them, or buried in the ash beneath.

That constraint decides the menu more than we do. Cooking over live fire means working with what holds up to it: whole fish that can be turned in a basket, cuts with enough fat to baste themselves, vegetables sweet enough to take char. The market decides the rest. We write the menu at four, print it at five, and occasionally cross things off it by nine.

Fire is not a technique here. It is the whole argument.

We buy from eleven growers and two boats. We break down whole animals in-house and use them across the week, which is why the menu changes on Wednesdays and why the thing you loved last month may not be back until next season. We think that is a fair trade.

Read the current menu
The six-metre hearth at , banked with oak coals
The hearth, banked for service 16:00
Six metres of firebrick. Eleven hours of coals.
Seats in the room
42
Length of the hearth
6m
The coals burn daily
11hr
Bottles in the cellar
340

The pass

Written at four, printed at five

This is the current card. It changes on Wednesdays and whenever the boats have a better idea. Prices exclude service.

  • Hearth bread, cultured butter

    9

    Baked directly on the firebrick each afternoon. Butter churned here, salted with ash.

    • Veg

  • Leeks in ash

    22

    Buried whole in the embers until collapsing. Hazelnut, aged sheep's cheese, burnt honey.

    • Veg
    • GF

  • Octopus, smoked paprika

    34

    Braised, then hung close to the coals to blister. Potato cooked in its own liquor.

    • GF

  • Half chicken, garlic & vinegar

    38

    Brined two days, turned in a basket for forty minutes, finished with the pan juices.

    • Whole turbot, fennel, burnt lemon

      68

      Line-caught, carved at the pass. Enough for two who are serious about it.

      • Signature
      • For two

    • Aged rib, bone marrow butter

      94

      Sixty days on the bone, rested twenty minutes, sliced thick. Ask for the fat cap.

      • Signature
      • For two

    Prices in local currency, service not included. Tell us about allergies when you book and again when you sit — the kitchen works over open flame and shares boards, so we will be straight with you about what we can and cannot promise.

    Book a table

    The whole hearth

    A set menu for the full table — everything we are proudest of that week, brought out in the order the fire is ready for it. Wine pairing optional, and worth it.

    85 per person Whole table only Pairing +45 Approx. 2 hrs
    Reserve the set menu

    Three we would order

    If you only come once

    Whole turbot in a fish basket over oak coals
    Turbot, in the basketFire

    Whole turbot

    68

    Turned by hand for eleven minutes. Fennel, burnt lemon, and the juices caught underneath.

    Sixty-day aged beef rib resting beside the coals
    Rib, sixty days on the boneFire

    Aged rib

    94

    Dry-aged in-house, cooked far from the flame then pushed close at the end. Marrow butter.

    Leeks buried in ash, split open and dressed
    Leeks, buried in ashVeg

    Leeks in ash

    22

    The dish that convinced us the vegetables belonged in the fire, not beside it.

    Coals raked flat along the length of the hearth

    No gas. No ovens.

    Six metres of fire,
    eleven hours a day.

    Ines Marchetti at the pass
    Ines MarchettiHead chef

    The kitchen

    "You cannot turn fire down. You can only move things closer to it, or further away. Every cook here learns to think in distance rather than temperature."

    Ines Marchetti Head chef & co-owner

    Ines opened Copper Lantern with her brother Tomas after eight years cooking over wood in the Basque country and one very cold winter in Copenhagen. She runs a kitchen of nine, holds the pass every service, and still lights the fire herself most mornings.

    2016Opens Copper Lantern in the Vance Street foundry
    2019Chef of the Year, Counter Magazine
    2022Publishes Distance From Fire
    2024Sustainable Kitchen award, The Passage Review

    The room

    Brick, smoke, and forty-two chairs

    The counter seats eleven and faces the fire directly. It is the best seat in the house and we will not pretend otherwise.

    Said elsewhere

    What the room sounds like from outside

    ★★★★★
    A kitchen with one idea and the discipline to keep it. The turbot alone justifies the trip across town.
    The Passage Review — 2025
    ★★★★★
    Marchetti cooks vegetables over fire better than most people cook meat over it. The leeks are not a side dish, they are the thesis.
    Counter Magazine — 2024
    ★★★★☆
    Loud, warm, and slightly too hot near the pass — which is exactly where you want to sit.
    Nightshade Guide — 2025
    The Coal Room private dining space
    The Coal RoomSeats 14

    Private & events

    The Coal Room

    The foundry's old fuel store, one floor down, with its own hearth and its own door to the street. Fourteen at one table, or twenty standing.

    Seated capacity
    14 at one table
    Standing capacity
    20
    Menu
    Set menu only, from 85pp
    Minimum spend
    1,600 Fri & Sat · 1,100 otherwise
    Includes
    Own hearth, sound system, street entrance
    Notice
    Two weeks preferred

    Reservations

    Take a table, or take the counter

    Tables are released thirty days ahead at 09:00. The counter keeps four seats back for walk-ins every night — arrive before seven and your odds are good.

    Where would you like to sit
    We confirm by email within 2 hours

    Request received

    We have your request and will confirm by email shortly.

    Nothing is charged now. If your table cannot be held we will offer you the nearest time we have, or the counter.

    Finding us

    Behind the foundry gates on Vance Street

    Map showing Copper Lantern at 18 Vance Street, Foundry Quarter.

    Address

    18 Vance Street
    Foundry Quarter, N1 4QD

    The door is unmarked and black. If you have found the gates, you are in the right place — walk through and turn left.

    Getting here

    Six minutes on foot from Foundry Cross station, exit 2. Night buses 43 and 271 stop at Vance Street after midnight. Bike racks are inside the gates.

    Parking

    No car park. Metered spaces along Ashfield Road are free after 18:30, and the multi-storey on Kiln Lane is four minutes away.

    Access

    Step-free from the street to the dining room and an accessible WC on the ground floor. The Coal Room is down sixteen stairs with no lift — tell us and we will bring the Coal Room menu upstairs instead.

    Good to know

    The room is warm and it is loud. Children are welcome until 20:00. We are a no-tipping house — service is included in the prices you see on the card.

    Before you come

    Questions we get asked most

    Mostly, and we will be honest when we cannot. Everything is cooked over one open hearth using shared boards and baskets, so we cannot promise zero cross-contact for severe allergies. Tell us when you book and again when you sit. There is always a full vegetarian path through the menu, and a vegan one with a day's notice.

    Four counter seats are held back every night and given out in person from opening. They go fastest on Friday and Saturday. The bar takes walk-ins for a glass and snacks whenever there is room.

    None. One practical warning: the room genuinely smells of woodsmoke, and so will your coat when you leave. Most people come to like it. Dry-clean-only silk is a brave choice.

    25 a bottle, two bottles maximum per table, and not on Friday or Saturday. If it is something we do not stock and you are excited about it, we would rather you brought it than not.

    Yes, until 20:00, in the dining room rather than at the counter — the fire is open and the pass is busy. High chairs are available and we will happily cook a smaller plate of whatever they will actually eat.

    Cancel free up to 24 hours before. Inside that window, tables of six or more are charged 25 per person, waived if we can refill the table — which we usually can if you tell us early.

    Usually. We train on the fire from scratch and do not expect prior live-fire experience. Write to work@emberwell.example with anything you like — a CV is fine, a paragraph about the best thing you ate this month is better.

    The Kindling

    A short note every other Thursday: what is coming off the fire, which grower turned up with something unreasonable, and when tables open. No offers, no countdowns.

    Reserve a table