I
Kindling
First flame — birch shavings, forty seconds of heat
Sourdough blistered over the first catch of birch, split at the counter. Butter cultured with last month’s embers. Eaten with your hands while the fire finds its voice.
An open-hearth tasting counter · Hudson, New York
EMBER
Table of Eight
Eight seats around one fire. Four hours, no written menu — the evening is served in the order a fire burns, from first kindling to last smoke.
The Evening
A fire, in eight courses
Every dinner follows the life of the hearth itself. We light it when you sit down. When it dies, dinner is over. Each course is cooked by whatever stage the fire has reached.
II
Catch
The fire’s edge — shell set on new coals
A Widow’s Hole oyster warmed in its own shell at the rim of the pit, finished with fennel-pollen mignonette. It never touches a pan. Nothing here does.
III
Flame
Direct flame — turned once, and only once
A whole leek burned black in open flame, peeled at the table to its sweet, steaming heart. Ash vinaigrette, black-garlic soil, smoked honey drawn from a burnt comb.
IV
Roar
Full fire — applewood at its loudest
Dry-aged duck crown roasted hanging over the roar, basted by its own falling fat. Charred plum, spice of the wood itself. The hottest the room will get all night.
V
Coals
Burial — six hours under the coal bed
Celeriac buried whole beneath the coals at noon and dug out for your table. Brown-butter whey, walnuts toasted in the shell. Patience, served hot.
VI
Ember
Hand-raked embers — the flame is gone; the heat is not
Beef rib laid directly on embers raked flat by hand, no grate between meat and fire. Bone-marrow jus, bitter leaves dressed in drippings. The course the table is named for.
VII
Ash
Aftermath — nothing touches the fire, only what it left
Fresh goat’s cheese rolled in sifted leek ash, pear poached in the pit’s residual warmth. The fire is nearly out now. You’ll notice the room has gone quiet with it.
VIII
Smoke
The fire’s ghost — cherrywood cold smoke, no heat at all
Dark chocolate and smoked cream under a lifted glass of cherrywood smoke, with a last cup of lapsang brewed on the dying coals. When your cup is empty, so is the hearth.
The Room
One table. One fire.
No second sitting.
The counter is a single ring of black walnut around a stone hearth, cut for exactly eight people. There is no bar, no second room, no music — the fire does the talking, and by the third course, so will the strangers beside you.
Chef Mara Voss cooks every course herself, three nights a week, forty weeks a year. She spent nine years at wood-fired kitchens in Asturias and the Basque coast before building this hearth by hand from Hudson Valley fieldstone.
The Ritual
Cooked at arm’s length,
plated at yours
Every plate is finished within reach of your seat. You will see the leek go into the flame and you will hear the rib hit the embers. We think knowing exactly where dinner comes from — to the meter, to the minute — is the whole point of eating this way.
- SeatsEight, never more
- LengthAbout four hours
- CoursesEight, fire permitting
- Price$310, service included
- PairingWood & wine pairing, $140
The List
The August list opens
Sunday, August 2 at noon
We don’t take reservations — we keep a list. On the first Sunday of each month we write to everyone on it, in order, until the month’s twenty-four seats are spoken for. Most months, the list clears in an afternoon.
One email when the list opens. Nothing else, ever.