Chichester restaurant celebrates four year anniversary

Emma Schwarz, Founder of the Barn in Chichester spoke to Reporter Henry Bryant about the achievement and their new menu launch.

Transcript

00:00I can't quite believe it is four years that we turned as a birthday a week ago and for me it

00:08has gone so fast and I think probably that's because we started in Covid in 2020 and it was

00:16all go go go really just trying to get the business off the ground with an incredibly

00:21tough situation however being driven by that force we had which is that maybe Covid would

00:28be the best time to start it because I think we all we all realised the power of restaurants the

00:34power of community the power of good tasting food and we all cared a bit more I think about where

00:42food came from we thought more about that what we did on the actual day of the event of the actual

00:47anniversary was we had Jess Fuller-Brown our local MP come in for lunch to hear the story

00:54and the founder of UK Harvest Yvonne Thompson she came in for lunch with us as well

01:00and we just discussed really the journey what we've achieved and it was just a chance to raise

01:06a glass and and really talk about it everyone talks about the soul of the of the barn they

01:14they as much as they love the delicious food and that's a massive driver to why they're here but

01:20they talk about the soul of the barn and that's the the ambience the feel the eclecticness the

01:25homeliness the relaxed vibe the customers know that they're going to be treated with you know

01:32respect when they come they're going to be served you know I think a lot of people have forgotten

01:36that restaurants serve people and we definitely do have that ethos um with the way we deal with

01:43our customers I think people talk about the soul the service and obviously the scrumptious food as

01:48well so we've just recently subdivided the menu into three sections you know we started as a

01:55breakfast brunch business so we've got a section which is all about the organic egg dishes that we

02:00do and then we've got some dishes that if we were to take them off I think people would be really

02:07angry so there's there's our signature dishes and that's where we've slightly reinvented

02:13a classic breakfast brunch lunch food things like you know the kedgeree the Welsh rabbit

02:21so many people don't do those classic dishes anymore and we've done them and but we've

02:25improved them slightly and then things like the smashed avo we don't just do smashed avo it's with

02:30beetroot and pistachios and feta and it's a it's an insane dish and then the the new section

02:38is a sort of seasonality section where we we look at what seasonal and this is really where

02:45a lot of the newness has come for this autumn winter um we wanted to celebrate the heritage

02:51uh beautiful rainbow carrots the purple yellow and and um orange ones we didn't want to just be

02:58boring about a carrot we we've actually created a sort of maple roasted carrot shawarma which is

03:06like a sort of in middle eastern street food dish um and then you've got cashew cream on the

03:11base of the flatbread then you've got the roasted carrot and then you've got chimchiri on the top

03:16it's it's an insane taste something you'd never have at home as well then we've got a hearty

03:21tomato spice stew with pulses butter beans and lentils and then we've got venison local venison

03:27sausages on the top we should all be eating more venison and a load of feta on the top and then

03:32there's a great warm salad it's the first time we've ever done salad for autumn and winter a lot

03:38of our customers like salad all year round but this is a warm salad with roasted beetroot and

03:43sweet potato really once again great taste sensation so that's the sort of rundown of the new menu