The brains behind Gonzo’s Tea Room in Norwich have launched an evening service at upstairs restaurant Brix and Bones, with locally sourced meats cooked on a coal grill and steaks sold by weight.
Brothers and owners Brad and Mike Baxter, who are from Canada, opened Brix and Bones three weeks before lockdown offering breakfasts, and they were gearing up to launch the dinner menu when being forced to close.
They continued to do takeaways from Gonzo’s and when pubs were allowed to reopen from July they started doing breakfasts again, which Mike Baxter says have had a “great reception”.
Now they are finally ready to launch Brix and Bones properly, with evening service set to start from Wednesday, September 23.
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The menu is split into “chops and crops”, with options such as local dry-aged pork chop and coal-roasted lamp rump, and “fire and flames”, with customers able to select the weight and cut from a blackboard.
Alongside a range of starters and desserts, the sides include thrice cooked chips and truffle aioli and fried beets with rosemary ash.
Mike Baxter said: “At the restaurants we worked at in Canada you can get everything from a burger and the sort of thing we do downstairs right up to high-end dining with really nice steaks in the same building and we wanted to do that here.
“The idea had been to do a few weeks of breakfast while our chef Olie tested things out in the kitchen for dinners, as we wanted an experimental menu, but then lockdown struck.
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“But one of the benefits has been that when we ran out of things during lockdown we met a lot of local farmers and now we use local produce as well as meat.
“We also have an incredible wine list and have worked with the ex-sommelier at Morston Hall.”
Olie McDonald, head chef, said: “We use a butcher’s called Clarkes in Hevingham and have dry-ageing fridges which tenderise the meat - everyone has said it is the best steak they have had.”
Brix and Bones will be open Wednesday to Sunday, 5pm until late (subject to change)
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