Earlier in the year, when the UK was beginning to emerge from Covid lockdown, a London food PR company was looking to move to a smaller office. They found one and gained a neighbour – fortuitously, a millionaire music producer named Nigel Frieda, brother of celebrity hairdresser John Frieda. They got chatting and discovered he owned a tiny, scarcely populated island in the Blackwater River estuary in Essex, around 50 miles to the northeast of the city, called Osea. He was looking to set-up a food offering on the island. “We know just the people,” said the PR company.

Photo courtesy Osea Island
For Native, the only way is Essex
Think local bass with fennel and lavender, desserts made with foraged sea buckthorn, and a palate cleanser of apple and seaweed sorbet with kombucha, all washed down with Davis’ pick of organic, biodynamic and low-intervention wines, and house-made cocktails. Oh, and “a lot” of oysters, initially at least, jokes Tidsall-Downes. Guests can even pay extra for a two-hour, pre-dinner foraging tour with the darlings of British wild food.
All sounds great, doesn’t it? Now, according to Tisdall-Downes, they’ve got to “Get on with the work and make it happen,” and fine-tune the logistics of getting produce (and people) on and off the island. For some restaurants this uncertainty would be unsettling. But for Native, you get the feeling they thrive on it, at being at the mercy of nature. And it’s all thanks to a chance meeting. Yes, Ivan, you really can get lucky sometimes.