EST. 2014
Our Story
A twelve-table kitchen in Marylebone, built quietly over a decade by a small team who care about the same things — ingredient, season, generosity at the table.
A GASTRONOMIC HOME
Built around a single table
Gourmet Haven began in 2014 as a four-night supper club in our founder Elena Marchetti's Marylebone flat. The principle hasn't changed: a small room, a short menu, and the people who grew the food close at hand.
We took the lease on number 12 a year later. The kitchen has been open every night since, except for the Sundays we close and the two weeks in August when we go and find new things to cook.
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WHAT WE STAND FOR
Seven things, written down
i.
Provenance, named
If we serve it, we know who grew, raised, caught, or fermented it. The menu lists farms and boats by name, and the answer to "where is this from?" should be short and specific.
ii.
Restraint over flourish
Three ingredients, cooked correctly, are better than seven assembled cleverly. We trim every dish until it stops getting better and stop one step before too far.
iii.
Warmth as a discipline
Hospitality is craft. We greet guests by name when we can, remember what you ordered last time, and try to make a Tuesday feel like an occasion.
iv.
The season is the menu
If asparagus is over, asparagus is off. We rewrite the menu monthly — sometimes weekly when a single ingredient demands it — rather than ship things from far away.
v.
Whole-animal, low-waste
We buy whole birds and primal cuts, ferment what we can't serve fresh, and run our own stock pot every day. Last year our food waste was 2.1% by weight.
vi.
Pay the team properly
We're a service-charge-included house. The 12.5% on your bill is distributed weekly to the entire team — kitchen, floor, and porters — through a tronc we publish quarterly.
vii.
Quiet, by design
The dining room is engineered for conversation. We have an acoustic ceiling, a sound budget of 62 dB at peak, and we keep the music low enough that you can hear your guest.
A SHORT HISTORY
Twelve years, abbreviated
2014
The supper club
Elena Marchetti and Tom Hardacre cook for twelve guests, four nights a week, out of a Marylebone flat.
2015
12 Marylebone Lane opens
We sign a five-year lease on a former framing shop. The dining room seats 28. Bill Granger writes the first review and we are fully booked by week three.
2017
Michelin Plate
Recognition for what the guide called "a quietly excellent neighbourhood restaurant cooking with serious intent."
2019
The Cellar opens
A second room below the dining room — sixteen seats, our cellar list of 240 bottles, and a chef's counter for the tasting menu.
2021
Rebuilding, again
We come back from eighteen months of intermittent closure with a smaller team and a kitchen garden on the Devon coast.
2024
Ten years
An anniversary tasting menu, a small book of the dishes we've cooked, and the closest thing the team has had to a quiet birthday.
2026
Still here
Twelve tables, the same idea, written a little more clearly.
THE TEAM IN THE KITCHEN
Our Chefs
Elena Marchetti
Founder · Head Chef
Trained at Locanda Locatelli and the River Café. Cooks from her grandmother's table notes and a small library of Italian regional books.
Marcus Chen
Chef de Pâtisserie
A formerly trained engineer who came to pastry late and well. Olive oil cake, panna cotta and the semifreddo are all his.
Tom Hardacre
Founder · Sous Chef
Originally a pastry chef at The Square. Runs our fermentation programme and the sourdough that arrives at every table.
Aisha Patel
Sous Chef
Joined us in 2019 from Trishna. Leads the fish station and is the reason the turbot stays on the menu year-round.
WHO WE BUY FROM
Our Suppliers
A short list of the people we owe most of what's on the plate to.
CORNWALL
The Padstow Day Boats
Single-line and small-net boats out of Padstow harbour. Our turbot, brill, sea bream and gurnard come from the same eight skippers each week.
CUMBRIA
Herdwick Croft
Native-breed Herdwick lamb, raised on the fells above Buttermere. Slower-growing, properly-fatted, and a flavour you cannot find elsewhere.
ISLE OF WIGHT
The Tomato Stall
Heritage tomatoes through summer — twelve varieties, picked the day before they reach us. Worth the entire season.
LANCASHIRE
Goosnargh Poultry
Free-range duck and chicken, dry-aged in our walk-in for four weeks. The duck breast on the menu has been here since opening night.
LONDON & WEST SUSSEX
Neal's Yard Dairy
Every British cheese we serve comes through Neal's Yard, who in turn buy from forty small producers across Britain and Ireland.
DEVON
Our Kitchen Garden
A two-acre walled garden in the South Hams that grows our herbs, edible flowers, soft fruit and most of the salad leaves on the plate.