The tasting menu Ines cooked at Aubel, at your own table.
Ines Barreau was sous chef in two starred kitchens, Aubel in Lyon and Calder in Copenhagen. Since 2021 she has cooked five-course tasting menus for four to fourteen guests, in homes and villas from Merrow Bay up into the valley vineyards.
- Per guest
- $240
- Wine pairing
- $95
- Guests
- 4 to 14
Ines Barreau, in a client’s kitchen on Tern Point.
She left Calder because a restaurant guest sees the plate for ninety seconds.
Ines spent eleven years in restaurant kitchens: seven at Aubel in Lyon, where she ran the fish section and then the pass, and four as sous chef at Calder in Copenhagen. Both held a star the whole time she was there.
What she missed was the table. From the pass she saw a plate leave and an empty one come back. At a dinner for ten she sees the second course land, hears who asks for the bread again, and can change the sweet if the table wants something lighter by ten o’clock.
So Suppertide is small on purpose. One dinner a night, five nights a week at most, with Tomás Arriaga, who has washed up and plated beside her since the second year.
11years in restaurant kitchens
2starred kitchens, Lyon and Copenhagen
212dinners cooked since 2021
1dinner a night, never two
Choose five courses. The card is printed before she shops.
This is the autumn menu, three dishes for each course. Pick one of each and write the line you want at the top: the card on the right is what your guests find at their places. Ines checks it against the market three days before and tells you if the scallops are not worth buying that week.
From 4 to 14.
suppertide
An evening at your table
Five courses for eight
First
Oyster
green apple, frozen buttermilk
Muscadet sur lie, Loire
From the sea
Hand-dived scallop
brown butter, celeriac
Chablis premier cru
From the garden
Hen of the woods
cured egg yolk, toasted buckwheat
Pinot noir, Sonoma Coast
Main
Duck breast, aged nine days
persimmon, its own jus
Syrah, Northern Rhône
Sweet
Brown butter ice cream
roasted pear, buckwheat
Late-harvest Riesling, Mosel
Cooked at your table by Ines Barreau
8 guests at $335$2,680
Four plates from this autumn, photographed at the guests’ tables.
Hen of the woods, celeriac, toasted buckwheatA house on Tern Point, six guests 
Cured mackerel, crisp shallot, horseradishA villa in the Corran valley, twelve guests 
Dark chocolate, olive oil, mandarin sorbetAn anniversary in Merrow Bay, four guests 
The fourth glass: Syrah, Northern RhôneA fortieth above the harbour, fourteen guests
Eight and a half hours in your kitchen, and it ends cleaner.
Three weeks out
A twenty-minute call
The menu card, every allergy at the table, where the table goes and what your oven actually does. Ines asks for a photo of the kitchen.
3:00 pm
Ines and Tomás arrive
With the mise en place already started, her own knives, and plates and glasses if yours are not right for the menu. You will not be asked for a single pan.
6:30 pm
The table is laid
Candles, glasses for the pairing, and a printed menu card at every place with your line at the top.
7:30 pm
First course
Ines brings each course herself and tells you what is on the plate in about two sentences. Courses come roughly every twenty-five minutes.
10:30 pm
Sweet, then coffee
Coffee and something small and warm from your oven. Guests usually stay at the table for another hour.
11:30 pm
The kitchen is yours again
Surfaces wiped, dishwasher run, bins out, leftovers labelled in your fridge. Then they go.
The duck jus is reduced the day before in Ines’s own kitchen. Some things do not travel well; that one travels better.
$240 a guest, and nothing added at the door.
For eight guests with the pairing, that is $2,680 for the evening, all of it. No service charge, no plate hire, no line for the washing up.
- Tasting menu$240 per guest
- Five courses, bread and cultured butter, coffee and petits fours. Shopping, cooking, service and the washing up.
- Wine pairing$95 per guest
- Five glasses chosen for your menu and poured at the table. Or open your own bottles; there is no corkage.
- The table4 to 14 guests
- Below four the market run does not pay for itself. Above fourteen the food would come out slower than it should, so Ines does not take it.
- Holding a date30% deposit
- The balance is due three days before, when the menu is final. Cancel up to 14 days out for a full refund.
- TravelIncluded to 40 miles
- Anywhere within 40 miles of Merrow Bay. Villas and boats further out are quoted on the call.
Three tables from last season, in the hosts’ words.
Sample reviews, shown for illustration.
She asked what my mother cooked when I was small and put a version of it in the second course. My mother cried, which she does not do.
Ottilie R.A seventieth birthday in Merrow Bay, ten guests Twelve of us in a rented villa with a kitchen none of us understood. Ines had the oven sorted in ten minutes and we never saw her hurry.
Marcus L.A week in the Corran valley, twelve guests The duck. We booked her again for the duck, and told her so on the phone.
Delphine and SamAn anniversary at home, four guests
Send the date and the menu. Ines replies the same evening.
She answers every enquiry herself, after service, usually before midnight. Saturdays in October and December go first; for those, write two months ahead.
- Telephone
- (555) 014-0717
- Where she cooks
- Merrow Bay, Tern Point, the Corran valley and anywhere within 40 miles.