Fifteen years since it opened along a stretch of East London’s Regent’s Canal, Towpath is as embedded within the landscape of Hackney as Columbia Road and the Bethnal Green Gasholders, Broadway Market, and London Fields Lido. The likes of Keira Knightley and Peter Doig are among the London residents to congregate outside the café’s waterfront kiosks when it opens each March, its wooden tables laden with jam jars of daffodils and its blackboard menu loaded with poached rhubarb and wild garlic dishes.
Many in the Towpath community, as founders Lori De Mori and Laura Jackson like to call their regulars, make a second special pilgrimage before it closes for winter on Bonfire Night, too. Its farewell-for-now parties have been known to include copious amounts of natural wine and a chorus of lamentations about having to wait until spring to order a caffè sospesi from Lori or eat Laura’s Fried Eggs with Caramelised Sage and Chilli Butter again.
Together with De Mori, Jackson tried to lessen the sting of their four-month seasonal closure by releasing the cookbook Towpath: Recipes and Stories in 2020. And in 2024? She’s offering “Tray Days” from the beginning of November: appointed dates when the Towpath community can order and collect enamel trays of cozy, warming dishes for the second year running.
“Lori and I are really anti-takeaway because of all the disposable packaging it involves,” Laura explains, “so this is the Towpath alternative, with customers paying a small deposit for our trays which they get back when they return them (or they can always bring their own). Orders are placed on Mondays and ready to pick up on Thursdays throughout the season, and all of the dishes last for at least four days—just pop them in the oven when you’re ready to eat—or you can freeze them, too, of course.”
In honor of Tray Days’ return on 7 November, she shares three of her favorite autumn recipes, below, and the link to sign up for this year’s tray days, here.
Fennel and Berkswell Gratin
Serves 6-8
I love to use things up and not waste anything. This is the perfect dish for doing so. Berkswell is a raw sheep’s milk cheese that is not dissimilar in taste to Parmesan and in texture to manchego. I often have Berkswell on the menu and so I end up with lots of bits and pieces. Melting them in a gratin is the perfect solution. You can prepare this in advance and leave it in the fridge until you are ready to cook. It is quite robust and can easily be reheated – it is lovely served the next day and will also last 2-3 days.
Ingredients
- 200g/7oz unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 onions, sliced
- 8 heads fennel, thinly sliced or shaved on a mandoline
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 bay leaves
- 2 sprigs thyme
- 75ml/3fl oz white wine
- 75ml/3fl oz full-fat milk
- 75ml/3fl oz double cream
- 250g/9oz Berkswell cheese, grated
- 1/2 lemon, juiced
- Salt and pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 210°C fan/450°F/gas mark 8. Melt the butter and olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onions and sweat down until softened but not colored—about 10 minutes. Add the fennel, garlic, bay leaves, and thyme. Cook for five to 10 minutes on a low heat to start softening the fennel, but don’t soften too much as the gratin will be cooked again in the oven. It’s just a lovely way to start the cooking process and get all the different flavors to know one another.
