The Compton Arms to launch new kitchen residency in January

The Compton Arms pub has announced that Rake will take over the kitchen for a long term residency from 9 January. Following a short incubation period at The Compton’s sister pub, The Gun in Hackney, Rake will move to the kitchen’s pub in 2025. The pub has long been known for “nurturing” some of London’s most promising chef talent. Past residencies include Four Legs, who went on to open The Plimsoll and Tollingtons, and rustic Italian kitchen, Tiella, closing in December. Rake is a kitchen concept by Jay Claus, Peter Ward and Syrus Pickhaver. The three have a combined 30 years experience in the industry and Rake is a culmination of the food they love to cook, which is restorative British fare. They first hosted a weekend pop up at Half Cut Market in September 2023 and then went on to a short term residency at The Robin in Crouch Hill. Claus started his career in kitchens at Quo Vadis in 2014. He went on to gain experience at Smoking Goat and Brat before heading up the kitchen at Acme Fire Cult. Pickhaver worked under Ben Tunnicliffe at the Tolcarne Inn for a year in 2018. He went on to work in the kitchens of Robin Gill’s restaurants, Zebra Riding Club and Birch before becoming Senior Sous at Acme Fire Cult in 2022. Ward’s experience spans both the front and back of the house. He started his career at The Shard in the Aqua Restaurant’s events team. By 2022 he’d made his way into the kitchen of a Swiss hotel quickly going on to join Acme Fire Cult as chef de partie. The trio returns to the fundamentals of their training to create Rake, which serves “largely unfeigned, restorative fare”, giving due respect to British cookery. The focus, among other produce, is on whole beast butchery and sustainable Cornish fish. The regularly changing menu will feature both classic, and “long forgotten” British recipes revitalised and modernised, like the crisp, moreish Beer battered cockles and clams. Oysters come baked rarebit style or as Oysters Kilpatrick with lardo, spiced tomato, horseradish and Worcestershire sauce. Other dishes will include the reinvented beef and ale pie with braised squid replacing the meat and topped with whipped potato, steamed crab claw with a laverbread and bacon Béarnaise for dipping, and a dish of Salsify with warming Scotch broth. On Arsenal match days the Compton Arms also offers its take on the hotdog, featuring a Cumberland sausage in a potato roll with a French dip gravy and English mustard for dunking. And lastly for desserts, treacle tart with clotted cream, St Emilion tart or a selection of cheeses.