Sǣl, which will mark Mills’s return to permanent bricks-and-mortar following the closure of his Leamington Spa restaurant The Tame Hare after the Covid-19 pandemic, has secured a site at The Goodsyard in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter.
Holding just eight seats, the restaurant will operate one sitting per service, serving a ‘singular tasting menu’ that’s driven by ‘hyper seasonal produce’.
Mills, whose CV includes stints at The Cross at Kenilworth and Mallory Court, describes his cooking as ‘defined by precision, restraint and deep respect for ingredients’.
Whole lamb will be broken down and celebrated across the menu with the belly braised and served with preserved wild garlic; fat rendered into a post-dinner fudge; and prime cuts paired with smoked offal sausage.
Waste at Sǣl will be minimised preservation techniques and incorporation of the restaurant’s drinks programme, which will be helmed by Asher Beardsmore, whose CV includes time at Couch, Opheem, and more recently as bar manager at Tropea.
Like the food menu, the drinks menu will change regularly based on seasonal ingredients.
Sǣl’s interior will also echo its ethos with soft furnishings, natural textures and art sourced from local galleries.
Mills, who will run the restaurant alongside his partner Hannah, established Sǣl as a pop up after relocating to Birmingham following the closure of The Tame Hare.
The name, which comes from an old English word meaning a gathering of townsfolk to celebrate harvest, seasonality and community, is the same as that used by Jason Atherton for his modern British brasserie that opened on the former Aquavit site in London’s St James’s Market development last year.
To support the final stages of Sǣl’s development, a crowdfunding campaign will launch in the coming weeks, further details of which will be announced in due course.