First look at Cycene menu from Theo Clench

Theo Clench’s new restaurant Cycene has opened in Shoreditch, London. Cycene – meaning kitchen in Old English – emulates the feeling of dinner in a private home.

Theo Clench, formerly executive chef at Akoko, and head chef at Portland before that, leads the Cycene kitchen with an ethos centered on ‘extracting optimum flavour from the simplest of ingredients’.

An announcement from the team said ‘Theo’s ten-course menu marries classic techniques with subtle influences from his travels, namely Eastern Asia and Australasia whilst drawing on his passion for seafood and game.’

Guests begin their evening at Cycene within the ground floor bar, which offers a ‘succinct list of apéritifs, minimal intervention wines and kombuchas, alongside a first course of house-made bread and a seasonal broth served in Steve Harrison’s artisanal clay beakers’, said a press handout.

Guests continue their meal within Cycene’s 15-cover, first floor dining room – accommodating tables of up to four covers. Private dining is available in an adjoining hearth room featuring works by artist Tyler Hays of the acclaimed New York-based BDDW.

As opposed to changing in entirety every few weeks, dishes on Theo’s menu are adapted regularly to continuously evolve and to use ingredients at their peak. The restaurant also includes a specialised ageing chamber, ‘allowing for meat and fish to be aged in-house, as well as fermentation lockers for the development of the bespoke soft pairing of drinking vinegars and elixirs.’

The wine list at Cycene is curated by James Brown, working with estates practising minimalist, terroir-driven winemaking practices. The list itself changes regularly with rare and unique bottles rotated from the offsite cellar.

Here we hear from Theo:

‘Quite simply, I serve the food that I want to eat. We don’t want to pigeonhole the menu into a specific genre, it’s too restrictive. My dishes depict influences from places I have lived, holidayed and travelled to, which I then marry with exceptional produce. There are certainly nods to Asia (such as the turbot with lettuce & sake sauce which is served with Japanese milk bread to mop it all up) and also Australia, where I lived for two years, but it’s definitely not confined to those places. My mum is half French, so there are noticeable influences from France in there too, amongst others.

‘There is nowhere to hide with this sort of cooking; I pride myself on dishes that are clean and precise and the produce has to be right. Almost all ingredients we use are from the UK. Seafood and shellfish for example, are all from the south coast and Scotland which is where I believe one can find the best fish in the world.

‘A number of dishes on the current menu I have been developing for many years, with the vision of serving them when opening my first place. The bread recipe for example, which is served alongside a beautiful broth for guests on arrival in the bar, is made from a sourdough starter I have had for 10 years. The chocolate sabayon tart I have spent six years developing, after being inspired by a dish I ate in Paris.

‘I had no recipe to speak of, but I ground at it, day in, day out, to get the perfect flavour consistency, and I eventually figured it out. I have paired this with sweet potato ice-cream, an idea that came after I was cooking sweet potato chips at home and left them under the grill a little too long so they went all sweet and caramelised. I mentioned to my girlfriend that I planned to make an ice-cream from it, she thought I was mad, but it worked so well it’s now the perfect accompaniment with the tart.

‘The joy of a restaurant like this is to be able to constantly change things up so the menu will always evolve; our regular diners love it but it’s also so important for the team, to keep them interested day to day. I’d like to think it’s one reason why our team has stayed with me, some for three to four years now, they have joined me at every restaurant I’ve worked at.

‘We try to use as much waste as possible from the kitchen for the soft pairing at Cycene. There are so many who opt for non-alcoholic beverages now, and what we offer provides an experience on par with the wine pairing. We believe no one should be marginalised for not participating in alcohol – we have the headspace and the capacity to create something really special in the soft drinks space which is rare.

‘These pairings will also change and develop with the seasons. Right now we are using apples, pears, beetroot, blackcurrant and celeriac, but as we move into spring and summer, the flavours will become much lighter, more refreshing.’

Here is the full menu:

• Bread | Broth
• The virtue of soup and bread in a clay pot prepares the body and mind for what is to come – Steve Harrison
• Chicken Liver | Red Pepper
  Comte | Walnut | Onion
  Crab | Genmaicha | Kombu
• Oyster | Cucumber | Oscietra
• Mackerel | Radish | Shiso
• Cavatelli | Sea urchin | Kinome
• Scallop | Brown butter | Schrenkii
• Turbot | Lettuce | Sake
• Duck | Beetroot | Endive
• Pear | Ginger
• Chocolate | Sweet Potato
• Petis Four

Reservations are now open through January 2023.

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