A coastal kitchen built on seaweed
The seaweed locals snack on like chips is having a fine-dining moment. One small kitchen is leading the way.
- Desk
- Food
- Format
- Feature
- Reading time
- 6 min
- Published
- Oct 1, 2026
On this coast people have always eaten dulse, the purple seaweed picked off the rocks at low tide and dried in the sun. It is salty, chewy and sold in paper bags at the corner store. Nobody thought of it as fancy.
From paper bag to tasting menu
A young chef who grew up snacking on it decided to see what else it could do. Toasted and crumbled over butter, folded into bread, steeped into broth: the tasting menu now features it in five courses, and the waiting list runs for weeks.
My grandmother ate it from a paper bag. Now it is on a tasting menu, and she thinks that is hilarious.
Picking at low tide
The kitchen buys from a family of harvesters who have worked the same stretch of shore for decades. They pick by hand, cut rather than pull so the plants regrow, and dry the harvest on racks in the sun.
The chef is careful not to make it precious. The bar still sells paper bags of the stuff, the same as the corner store, for anyone who just wants a snack.
“My grandmother ate it from a paper bag. Now it is on a tasting menu, and she thinks that is hilarious.”
— The chef
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