Island life
Vraic (Guernsey)
GETAWAYS • Guernsey
It’s 6a on a Friday in Gatwick Airport and throngs of travellers are already pounding pints. Everyone’s rowdy, jetting off to Prague or Tenerife for a weekend of debauchery. Not me: I’m taking a more civilised flight to Guernsey, the small island in the English Channel where the sea is visible from almost everywhere.
It’s a short flight, less than an hour, but salt air and lush, green landscape make it feel much farther away from London than it seems. The distance is perfect for a day out of the city to experience Guernsey’s most exciting new culinary offering.
Vraic, opened last summer by ex-Ynyshir head chef Nathan Davies, is located along one of Guernsey’s endless coasts, nestled against a sandy beach where the chefs forage for seaweed daily. It’s a celebration of the island’s ingredients, from the more than 700 types of seaweed to the prized dairy cows to the locally caught fish, including lobster and turbot. It’s also a celebration of the sea itself, both in the flavours and in the serene location, where guests are welcome on the terrace for a post-meal drink. The building was once a bistro and before that a tea room, but it’s better suited to fine dining, where the place becomes part of the menu.
The meal, offered for lunch and dinner as a 10-course tasting menu, marries Davies’ Welsh background with his newfound love for Guernsey. The most humble but also the most memorable dish is a seaweed broth featuring eight varieties of local seaweed pulled off the beach earlier in the day. It’s rich, umami, filled with texture and deceptively complex. Dishes rotate seasonally, but always showcase what can be found on the land and in the water nearby. Very little comes from beyond the island, and what does is brought in for good reason, like the heritage Welsh grain that the chefs mill into bread to serve alongside whipped miso butter and beef drippings.
After lunch, which lasts a leisurely but airtight three hours, a taxi is waiting to take me back to the airport for the short flight back to London. From the air, I can see Guernsey’s verdant fields and old glasshouses, where many of Vraic’s ingredients are grown. It may seem crazy to fly across the water just to eat lunch, but it’s worth it for the seaweed alone. –Emily Zemler
→ Vraic (Guernsey) • Mont Cuet Rd • Wed-Thu 630-1130p, Fri 12-430p & 630-1130p, Sat 1230-430p & 630-1130p • Book.