Our story
We cook with
what burns.
Embra started as a single grill in a borrowed courtyard and a promise to ourselves: no gas line, no electric burner, no shortcut. Everything that reaches the counter has been over a flame.
Opened 2019
Twelve seats
One hearth
01 — How it started
We were tired of kitchens that sounded like machines. So we built one that sounds like a fire — crackle, hiss, the knock of a log settling — and put twelve stools around it.
The first year we cooked for friends, then friends of friends. The menu was whatever the fire was good at that night. It still is.
Today the hearth burns oak from a single forest cooperative, olive prunings from two groves and vine cuttings after every harvest. Nothing else goes in.
02 — A day at the hearth
The fire sets
the clock.
16:00
Light
Oak goes in first. Three hours to build a bed of coal.
17:30
Let it fall
The flames drop, the heat evens out, bread goes in the ashes.
19:00
Doors
Twelve guests, one cold glass by the woodpile.
19:30
First light
Every course served to everyone, at once.
22:30
Last embers
Dessert from the coals. The fire is left to die down.
03 — What we hold to
Three rules.
01
No switch
There is nothing to turn on or off. If the fire is low, we wait. If it’s roaring, we use it.
02
What’s close
Wood from within a day’s drive, produce from farms we can visit, fish from the boat that docks at noon.
03
Nothing wasted
Ash seasons the butter, coals warm the plates, the last embers make breakfast for the staff.