Harriet Mansell’s Lilac opens new outdoor space for wild foods tasting menu

Dorset restaurant Lilac Restaurant & Wine Bar, run by Harriet Mansell, has expanded for the summer, with a new tasting menu now on offer

‘Garden Table’ is taking bookings through to September 

Harriet Mansell’s Dorset restaurant Lilac has launched a seasonal tasting menu, available in a new outdoor space at the venue.

‘Garden Table’ is now open and available for bookings until September.

Based in Lyme Regis, near the Devon border, Lilac Restaurant & Wine Bar opened in 2021 and was the sister venue of Robin Wylde, which closed its doors in September of last year.

Lilac is housed in a 400-year-old cellar on Broad Street, but has now expanded into the outdoors, in a space thought up by Harriet herself and garden designer Anna Wardrop.

Listed in the Michelin Guide, Lilac was the only Dorset-based restaurant named in the SquareMeal top 100 earlier this year, placing 61st overall. Harriet is also nominated for their 2024 female chef of the year award.

Garden Table is an intimate area for 14 diners, with wild and foraged ingredients on offer, as per Harriet’s ethos.

Devon-born Harriet previously featured on an episode of The Staff Canteen’s Grilled podcast and was a contestant on the BBC’s Great British Menu in 2020.

Asked what diners can expect at Garden Table, Harriet told The Staff Canteen: “The new offering is outdoor dining, subject to weather, of course!

“We offer a wild foods tasting menu.

“The price is not reflective of what you’re getting for it. It was a moment of madness offering at that price, thinking we’ll just do it as a bit of a charitable passion project, just to kind of keep it going.

“It won’t stay at that price for much longer!

“It’s £79 and you’re getting millions of courses, really high quality local fish, meat and everything is foraged.

“We know we’re going to be knocking people out the park when they come to eat here.

“It’s a step up from the food we were serving at Robin Wylde, but we’re charging less for it.

“We’ve created a beautiful space, with lots of ferns and woodruff and beautiful lighting.

“We don’t really give people a menu. We write it up on a board, obnoxiously vague actually, because we don’t want people to know.

“When people come and book here, they put some trust in us.”

She continued: “We’re about 75 per cent booked up for the summer period, all repeat customers from Robin Wylde.

“We wanted to hopefully capture some new customers as well, who were coming through the summer and maybe might stumble across it.

“That element of surprise is so much fun.”

Discussing the food on offer, Harriet added: “There’s a lot of ingredients we’ve just discovered, like sweet vernal grass. Lots of summer flowers we’re foraging, all of the beach herbs we’re still picking such as rock samphire and beach kale.

“There’s lots of different flavours. It’s a really good representation of what’s going on in the hedgerow at the moment.

“It’s been really successful. Everyone who’s been here so far has given us really positive views about it, which is nice.

“I’ve got an amazing team of chefs working with me on this one.

“I’ve got one chef who was previously the head chef of a two-star restaurant for a few years. We’re all working together in terms of bringing a high calibre of skills.

“We’re looking for a space to have a restaurant again. This is a great thing to keep the team working together, kind of bridging of the gap, while we look for the next restaurant.”

Garden Table is available on Mondays and Tuesdays from 5pm. Lilac is open from 5pm Wednesday to Saturday, and from 12pm on Sundays.