Fine dining restaurant Faru launches new 'accessible' tasting menu after Durham Restaurant Week success

They proved a big hit in the recent Durham Restaurant Week, where they offered a scaled down version of their regular 10-course tasting menu, which attracted scores of new diners through the doors.

And now, Faru, which opened in the former Mountain Warehouse in Silver Street, Durham City, earlier this year, has added a regular five-course tasting menu to their offering to meet demand.

The new restaurant is the brainchild of husband and wife team Jake and Laura Siddle, formerly head chef and front-of-house manager at Newcastle’s Michelin-starred House of Tides.

As well as offering the regular 10 course at £98 per head, the five-course version comes in at £60 a head and is aimed at giving people a special dining experience using the best, seasonal ingredients, some of which are foraged from the nearby banks of the Wear.

The new menu, which launches this week, features dishes such as beef, artichoke and walnut and a sea bass dish served with celeriac and apple.

Firm favourites, such as the hen of the woods dish which customers have raved about, will stay on the new menu.

Laura, 30, who worked with Jake at House of Tides for nine years before they decided to open their own venue, said: “We introduce new dishes when the seasons change to ensure we’re offering the best quality produce to our diners.

“Although we have always offered a 10-course tasting menu since opening our doors, we put on a five-course menu during Durham Restaurant Week which proved so popular that we have decided to continue with it.

“Jake and the team have put together new dishes which reflect the change in season, so guests can try new flavours and ingredients.”

The new sea bass dish is cooked on the BBQ, and served with celeriac cooked in coal oil, apple ketchup, celeriac puree, mussels, apples compressed in burnt apple oil, sea herbs and a smoked vermouth sauce.

“We also have a new sous vide beef fillet with a walnut gel, a caramelised Jerusalem artichoke puree and a Jerusalem artichoke cooked in marmite. It’s served with a small bowl of shallot jam, braised beef shin and a Jerusalem artichoke and beef fat espuma, then finished with roasted artichoke powder,” explained Jake.

“We are putting on a new tart to replace the crab tart. It will be a chicken liver parfait in a pastry case, with a fig gel, pears compressed in a lemon thyme pickle and a chicken and hazelnut crumb,” he added.

Faru, which means ‘journey’ in Old English, was a “dream come true” for the couple who always wanted to own their own restaurant.

Jake, 29, who has worked with Kenny Atkinson since the age of 17, at Rockliffe Hall before he opened House of Tides, said: “Our aim has always been to make fine dining a relaxed experience. The restaurant itself is very comfortable and guests can watch all the theatre happening in the open-plan kitchen.

“The new five-course tasting menu means guests can still enjoy the full Faru experience but at £60, it’s a bit more accessible to people who may not have tried Faru or for those who want a lighter option to the 10-course experience.

“We’re still very new as a business and it’s only been seven months since we opened, so we’re still learning and developing. We’ve had fantastic support so far, with people travelling from all over to try Faru, and we’re really grateful for that. We want to continue to push ourselves and offer top-level food and service.”

The new dishes will feature on both the 10-course and five-course tasting menus available at Faru. For more information, visit www.faru.co.uk