Chef and sommelier couple Joshua and Victoria Overington have revealed plans to open a new restaurant with rooms in North Yorkshire in June. Having closed their York restaurant Le Cochon Aveugle last year, the new venue will open on the main street in the village of Hovingham.
Mýse (pronounced meez) will celebrate the ancient North Yorkshire terrain that surrounds the restaurant and has been named after the Anglo-Saxon word for ‘eating at the table’, drawing on the area’s history with an “elegant spin on traditional Yorkshire cooking”.
Dinner at the newly renovated 19th century inn will start with a light broth of Spring herbs and mussel followed by raw razor clam, forced Yorkshire rhubarb umeboshi and elderflower, and a duck liver and walnut pie. Seeded sourdough baked in-house will be served with cultured butter and chicken drippings, with dishes to follow including hand-dived Orkney scallop baked in its shell with sea urchin; sweetcorn husk custard with kernel velouté and hedgehog mushrooms; and day boat red mullet cooked over juniper with a sauce made from its livers.
The menu will celebrate locally reared meat: Swaledale lamb saddle and belly with farm trimmings from local Rocket & Russet Farm and an anchovy garum sauce; and ‘savoury ducks’, a take on faggots.
Sweeter dishes will include palate-cleansing candied raspberries; a goat’s milk ice cream with caramelised honey, raspberry juice and cicely; day-old bread with house-made preserves; and a flaxseed caramel.
The wine list at Mýse will be curated by Keeling Andrew & Co, the wine importers from the team behind Noble Rot, working closely with Victoria. Alsatian Rieslings will make an appearance as well as bottles from the Savoie and Jura regions, a nod to the couple’s time living in France, where they met.
English sparkling wine, Yorkshire-brewed beer and local gin will be on hand as well as non-alcoholic drinks: shrubs using local seasonal fruits will be made in-house, as well as a digestif menu for those looking for a nightcap in the snug. Later this year, three bedrooms will open at Mýse.
Joshua Overington said: “Mýse is an opportunity for us to finally realise our restaurant dream. We loved our time at Le Cochon Aveugle and think back on it fondly, but outgrew the space. This is our chance to create something more ambitious and a reflection on our incredible Yorkshire surroundings. I grew up here and it has been home to Victoria for 10 years, so we wanted to create a welcoming, homely spot, each dish a nod to dinners that my Yorkshire grandmother would cook for me, but elevated and refined.”
The evening tasting menu will cost £110 per person, with shorter lunch menus available on Saturdays and Sundays at £80 per person. The wine pairing will cost an additional £85 per person and a non-alcoholic pairing will cost £65 per person, and at lunchtime, £60 per person and £45 per person, respectively.
Le Cochon Aveugle closed in November after almost nine years of trading. At the time, the Overingtons said they had “creatively outgrown” the space.
After training at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Paris and working as a private chef, Overington returned to his native York to work for Michael O’Hare across the Blind Swine and Le Cochon Aveugle. When O’Hare closed the restaurants in 2014, Overington took the opportunity to take over the lease.