Corenucopia

Corenucopia is the more casual sister of Core by Clare Smyth, and opened in Chelsea in December 2025. It seats forty guests and has attractive decor, with well-spaced tables and a bright feel to the dining room.  The head chef is Canadian Gary Mundi, who had worked at Core from 2019. The a la carte menu featured dishes such as smoked salmon pate at £24 and Dover sole with lobster mousse “fish and chips” at £54. Potatoes were available in no less than ten forms, from steamed (£7.70) to fondant (£8.25) and more. Desserts such as sherry trifle and lemon meringue pie were available at £16.

The wine list was vast and not in a format that I could easily analyse in detail. Example references were Leon Bayer Pinot Gris 2022 at £75 for a bottle that you can find in the high street for £19, Rippon Sauvignon Blanc 2022 at £85 compared to its retail price of £27, and Domaines du Coulet No Wines Land 2022 at £95 for a wine that will set you back £27 in the high street. For those with the means there was Antinori Tignanello 2014 at £395 compared to its retail price of £146, and Clos Rougeard Le Bourg 2017 at a ridiculous £1,450 for a wine whose current market value is £336 e.g. that wine’s “in bond” price at Lay and Wheeler right now is £285. This is a lovely wine, but who in their right mind is going to pay that much for it?

A snack of fried chicken and caviar was enjoyable, as were warm grilled olives with Timut pepper.  My starter was asparagus with morels and vin jaune sauce (£34). The New Forest asparagus had good flavour, and the morels, actually foraged on the south coast of the UK, were excellent. The vin jaune sauce is a classic pairing here and was well made. This was a seasonal, well-made dish, and was the dish of the meal for me (16/20). I also tried a guinea fowl consommé (£18) which had a lovely deep flavour and was suitable light in colour. The seasoning of the consommé was excellent (15/20).

A luxury take of fish and chips (£54) was Dover sole stuffed with lobster mousse before being deep fried. This dish worked well, the coating being crisp, the sole and lobster working well together. This came with good, minty mushy peas and also good triple cooked chips. Tartare sauce on the side was suitable tangy (15/20). The only slip was a side dish of carrots, which seemed to both of us significantly overcooked. I wasn’t expecting al dente, but these carrots were definitely at the soggy end of the spectrum. I won’t score them as they did not appear on the bill, but this seemed out of character with the generally high technical standard of the rest of the meal.

Lemon meringue pie (£16) was suitably comforting. The pastry base was well-made, the lemon filling had enough but not too much sharpness, and the toasted meringue topping had light texture (15/20). I also tasted a very capable tiramisu, which had plenty of punchy coffee flavour and good texture. 

Service was excellent, led by manageress Lynn Logtestijn and sommelier Valentin Picon. The coffee was a Brazilian blend from HR Higgins, a high-quality supplier. The bill came to £157 per person including wine, coffee, service etc. Overall, Corenucopia offers a very enjoyable experience. The menu is appealing, the staff are charming and the room is smartly decorated. The technical standard of the food is generally high, and this combination of factors explains why it is fully booked for weeks ahead at the moment.