Bonfire nIght seems such an appropriate time for Andrew Sheridan to unveil a restaurant with open fire to the fore. The Counter may not make as much of its flame-driven cuisine as Arcadian, his other recent Manchester launch, but a distinct whiff of smoke is drifting across the room even before our seared but pink wagyu sirloin arrives, swimming in its slather of black garlic butter, beef fat onions and bone marrow sauce.
Big, bold flavours from a chef, who has worked with a variety of styles across numerous kitchens, before founding his own Open Restaurants Group, his flagship 8 by Andy Sheridan in Liverpool.
True to its name, one of the selling points of his new 60-cover eaterie in the Island Building just off John Dalton Street is the chef’s ‘counter experience’. Here you can get a close-up view of your ribeye, duck or monkfish tail getting the full flaming treatment. Cue the old Platters hit: “When your heart’s on fire, you must realise, smoke gets in your eyes”. Cue an extractor fan at the top of its game.
Currently the heart of cutting edge chefs seems to be set on replicating the primeval urge to harness open fires. Summed up in Chapter One of Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: “When humans domesticated fire, they gained control of an obedient and potentially limitless force. Unlike eagles, humans could choose when and where to ignite a flame, and they were able to exploit fire for any number of tasks.
“Most importantly, the power of fire was not limited by the form, structure or strength of the human body. A single woman with a flint or fire stick could burn down an entire forest in a matter of hours. The domestication of fire was a sign of things to come.”
The only high-profile abstainer to the current trend is a woman, the great Sally Abe. Before finally opening her own restaurant, Teal in Hackney, she said: “I’m probably the only chef in the UK who doesn’t want to cook over an open fire.”
Swimming against the tide it seems in a week when Pasture announced it would be taking up a ground floor space in Manchester’s 45-storey St Michael’s development, centring on wood-fire ovens. The Bristol steakhouse was an early convert, opening its first steakhouse in Bristol in 2018. That became a ‘fire brand’ (sic) with outlets in Cardiff and Birmingham and they even have their own online butchers. The Brummie branch was recently lauded by the usually acerbic Sunday Times reviewer Camilla Long
The fiery heritage of Etxebarri
A much more momentous announcement in the week was the coronation of the masters of open fire, Asador Etxebarri in Spain’s Basque country as the World’s Number One restaurant. Chef patron Bittor Arguinzoniz pioneered the global trend back in 1990 in the remote village of Axpe. His back to basics was a foray into the future as he built his own adjustable grills and handpicked the wood for each dish, grilling everything from caviar to milk ice cream over embers. You can now spend 300 euros a head on the likes of sea cucumber with green beans and baby eels as well as remarkable grilled meats.
Long a fixture on World’s 50 Best, now renamed The 50, after two second place years it has now hit top spot.
Meanwhile, the always on the ball Financial Times has chosen this weekend to publish an article on how open fire cooking has conquered Paris. Pity all the haute cuisine temples; France hardly gets a look in on the 50 list, announced in Lima Peru and flambéeing these days seems a rather underpowered method of conflagration.
The Nordic contribution of Niklas Ekstedt
The smoke signals have long been there. We caught up with ultra-purist Niklas Ekstedt on a visit to, of all places, London’s Great Scotland Yard Hotel. Or rather we caught up with Ekstedt at the Yard, an outlet of his Stockholm flagship which follows his rigorous formula of cooking everything without the use of gas or electricity. Instead he torches ecological Nordic charcoal, birch, hay, seaweed, juniper, aiming to imbue their different flavours.
In one interview he lamented that some chefs had just jumped on the bandwagon: “High-end restaurants are using compressed briquettes with chemicals. The majority do that. It’s super fake. It’s strange to buy products like wagyu or expensive fish and cook them on this charcoal. Fire should be an ingredient.”
Ekstedt is no primitive. His own CV includes Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago and El Bulli in its heyday before opening his first restaurant where Rene ‘Noma’ Redzepi was his first employee.
There was aways an iconoclastic edge to him that rejected the excesses of fine dining by numbers. It was fuelled by reading old Scandinavian cookbooks, Take his adoption of the medieval-looking flambadou for the most theatrical moment in an Ekstedt meal. Expect to be ushered into the realm of flame behind the pass to watch this cast-iron cone on its long handle being heated up in embers, then filled with beef or reindeer tallow.
The flambadou’s molten fat drips straight onto a freshly shucked raw oyster to instantly sear and smoke it. Dressed with butter sauce, Swedish vinegar and spinach oil, it makes a sensational Ekstedt appetiser.
It’s not just about the flames – technique counts
The humblest of garden barbecuers will have realised – after some over-charred experiences – that full-on flame isn’t the way to go. Working with fire is both craft and instinct – requiring precision, patience and a deep understanding of heat.
Ekstedt again: “We are a technique-driven restaurant that works with fire. We are not a fire restaurant. The open wood fire is not the important thing. It’s the technique.”
Andrew Clarke couldn’t agree more. The London-based co-founder of Acme Fire Cult loves the freedom live fire cooking on a huge outside grill gives him.
Quality sustainable lumpwood charcoal with no additives is is a priority, he says. “You can also try using a combination of wood and charcoal, as there’s a really nice meeting point for them both. Think of it as using charcoal for heat, and wood for smoking and flavour…
“The biggest tip I’d give people about cooking with fire. Make sure you understand the difference between direct and indirect cooking and it will massively improve your game. You don’t necessarily have to cook directly on the coals. Try pushing the coals to one side and have a safe space to cook things slowly – that’s the key.”
Two new places with a New World vibe I’ve tried recently seem to be getting it just right – Appalachia, authentic mountain food near London’s Old Street, and Dahlia Stereo in Manchester’s NQ, whose Mexican barbacoa served up an ex-dairy sirloin that was the best meat dish I’ve had this autumn.
Seafood revelations in Getaria and Antwerp
It’s good to see The Counter, Arcadian and arguably Manchester’s best flame-led kitchen, Stow, tackling a monkfish on the bone. It only seems like yesterday that Tomos Parry’s Brat in Shoreditch caused ripples by adopting the Basque way of cooking whole turbot over the fire, but that was eight years ago. That same year on a coastal hike to Bilbao we had stropped off at Getaria to sample the original version of what the Basques call rodaballo at the Michelin-starred Elkano.
Here is my recollection: “Did our rodaballo rock? You bet. We were introduced to the fish by our server before it was salted, sprayed with the magic oil and vinegar elixir perfected by Pedro Arregui half a century ago and slapped on the coals for the requisite 12 minutes.
“Encountering the result on the plate was magical. Pedro’s son Aitor, who now runs today’s more stylish restaurant, gave us a masterclass in the various constituents of the fish as he carved them – from the delicate fillets and dark fatty back sections, ribs from which he leached the gelatine with his knife and the succulence of the cheeks.”
Elkano is at No.33 on the 2026 Top 50 list. A revelatory recent wood-fired fish experience came on a trip to Antwerp. At Michelin-mentioned InVINcible, set among the maze of gabled houses in the historic city centre. From the counter around the open kitchen it was mesmerising to watch chef Kenny Burssens shuffle cuts of meat and fish from direct to indirect heat. We shared a whole gilt-head bream that was piscine perfection. It salved the disappointment of turbot not being on the menu that evening. In London at Brat these days a 1.8kg of turbot to share will cost you £200.
The Moorcock opened my eyes to the wonders of wood-fired
Al Brooke Taylor and his partner, sommelier Aimee Turford, were hunting for their own place and found the Moorcock, a dilapidated old pub on the moors above Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire. In the space of a fortnight, they stripped it back and made it welcoming and pleasingly pubby for major dining destination. A big reason for the latter was the five-ton smokehouse and industrial-grade grill they installed n the car park.
It’s where Brooke-Taylor created dishes that were unforgettable. A ‘bouillabaisse’ featuring line-caught grey mullet cooked en papillote with fennel and preserved lemon. 11 week dry aged rare breed Mangalitza pork chops. Mega smoky hogget, served with a piquant ground-ivy jelly. Crispy smoked potatoes. Wood-roast kabucha (Japanese) pumpkin gnocchi, strewn with a walnut pesto and curls of house ricotta.
After five years they shut up shop, Al went back to Australia to work as a potter. The embers went cold. This is my benchmark. If you jump on the wood-fired bandwagon be adventurous. Mankind does not live by flatbreads alone.
Thanks to the estimable Joby Catto for the Etxebarri and Moorcock shots.