When Ivan Tisdall-Downes quietly opened Field Notes at the end of October, his tiny team faced some challenges. The dishwasher packed up the day before service, and it seemed like every other table ordered the entire menu (it was half-price, after all). “It was chaos,” he says, grinning. “But better that than an empty dining room.”
Tisdall-Downes is best known as co-founder of Native, the sustainability-focused restaurant that made headlines for serving squirrel ragu and woodpigeon kebabs in its various iterations across London, Essex and Worcestershire. Native picked up a Michelin Green Star in February this year thanks to Tisdall-Downes’s imaginative, resourceful cooking, but the final version, at Netherwood Estate, closed in March 2025, just as it was hitting its stride.
Field Notes is his first solo project since, and it inherits the same DNA – nose-to-tail cooking, foraging and zero-waste thinking – but this time, Tisdall-Downes is casting the net wider. “I’ve spent the past year cooking everywhere from Madrid to the Philippines,” he says. “You realise sustainability, soil health, broken food chains – these aren’t just British issues, they’re global ones."
Where Native was focused on British produce, Field Notes also champions sustainable producers from further afield, from Spain’s Todolí citrus to regenerative Greek olive oils. That’s reflected in Tisdall-Downes’s globetrotting menus. The regularly changing menu might feature stracciatella dressed with a jolt of miso bagna cauda, sesame fish toast with apple hoisin, or a steak tartare that, in a wink to old-school cafes, arrives at the table with fried bread in a toast rack and brown sauce. Some Native OGs return, too, like the Marrowmel – a white chocolate and bone marrow caramel, set inside the bone itself. “Everyone still loves it,” he says. “There are probably lots of people that have never tried it before so, yeah – it’s staying on.”
He’s also experimenting with a small hydroponic growing system to cultivate herbs and microgreens in the restaurant – a small but symbolically powerful counter to global soil degradation. “You can’t grow root veg in it, but we can take pressure off the soil by growing certain things hydroponically,” he says. “I want to use it as a small seed bank, preserving the green spaces that are disappearing in the city.”
The interiors are raw, but warm. Concrete columns give Field Notes a stark, brutalist edge, softened by big streetside windows, foliage and the gentle glow of low-hanging bulbs. In the evenings, flickering candles bring some romance, too. “You walk in from Shoreditch graffiti and sirens, and hopefully you feel a bit of nature in the room,” Tisdall-Downes says. Come in anytime, and you’ll see him behind the black, monolithic counter, cooking in full view. “You can chat to me and see me cry in the corner when I burn myself.”
He’s had a hand with opening – notably from Tasca sommelier Sinéad Murdoch and Sarap chef Budgie Montoya – but Field Notes is very much Tisdall-Downes’s show. It’s completely self-funded, and he’s sunk pretty much everything he has into it. “It’s all on the line,” he says, with a nervous laugh. “People have said I’m a bit mad, that I should be buying a house instead, but I feel like I have to give it one more roll of the dice.”
Field Notes
Studio 3 Monohaus, 143 Mare Street, E8 3FW
Hours:
Wed 5pm–9pm
Thu to Sat 12.30pm–2.30pm, 5pm–9pm
