From a little notebook to something real.

MIEK VAN KLEEF | AUTUMN | 30TH OCTOBER

For years, North has been a vision I've carried around with me.

In conversations over dinner, in ideas scribbled down in a notebook, in little daydreams about how a place might look, feel, and what it might be like to spend your days there. There have been so many versions of it, so many ideas that have changed along the way, and so many moments where it has felt like something that's still a long way off.

And now, here we are.

Guests have come through the door, sat down at our tables and enjoyed the dishes Alex has spent so long perfecting. All these things we've talked about for so long are finally existing outside of our own heads. And I've found myself thinking about something that feels quite important to me: how do you take a vision you've carried around for years and help other people feel it, too?

Because a vision is a funny thing. You can spend years building it up in your mind, but the moment you bring other people into it, it starts becoming something different. You have a team who need to understand what you've been imagining. You have guests who walk through the door with no idea about the conversations, the decisions, the little details and the dreams that have gone into the place they're sitting in. 

And somehow, you want them to feel a little bit of it, even if they don't know the whole story.

For us, so much of that story comes back to the landscape around us and the people who make it what it is. The growers, farmers, cheesemakers and creatives who put so much time and care into what they do. We've always wanted North to feel connected to the place we're in, to the changing seasons and to the people behind the things we put on our plates.

Sometimes it's an ingredient that only comes around for a little while, a conversation with a producer that changes the way you think about something, or a little detail on the menu that makes someone curious enough to ask a question. And sometimes it's simply about telling someone where their cheese comes from, or why we're so excited about the vegetables that have arrived that morning.

These things might seem small, but to me, they're the bits that make a place feel alive.

They're the connections between the people growing the food, the people cooking it, the people serving it, and the people sitting around the table enjoying it.

And I suppose that's why we wanted to start this blog.

There are so many stories behind the things we do at North, and most of them don't quite fit on a menu. We want to share more of them. To introduce you to the people we work with, talk about the ingredients we're excited about, share the little things we're learning and the ideas that inspire us. To give you a glimpse of everything that happens before something eventually makes its way onto your plate.

Sitting here now, looking back at those little scribbles in my notebook, it's incredible to think about how far an idea can travel. Something that started as a collection of thoughts and dreams has slowly become a place filled with people, conversations, plates of food and a life of its own.

And although opening the doors feels like the end of one very long chapter, it also feels like the beginning of something else entirely. There are so many more stories to tell, so many ideas still scribbled in notebooks, and so many things we still can't wait to share.

But for now, it's just really nice to be here. To see people sitting at our tables, enjoying the things we've spent so long dreaming about, and to realise that this little world we've been building in our heads is finally a place other people can be part of, too.