Cadet

Where Natural Wine and Charcuterie Converge in North London

Newington Green sits at a particular remove from the central London dining circuit. Its Georgian terraces and independent traders have long attracted a different kind of hospitality business: one built on product conviction rather than footfall. That context matters when considering Cadet, a compact bar and shop at 57 Newington Green that brings together wine importers Beattie and Roberts, charcuterie specialist George Jephson, and former St John and Lyle's chef Jamie Smart. The combination reflects the venue's focus on imported wine and charcuterie-led small plates.

A Sourcing Model Built Into the Structure

The natural wine movement in London has, over the past decade, produced a clear split between bars that use natural wine as an aesthetic signal and those where the selection reflects genuine importer relationships and supply-chain knowledge. Beattie and Roberts, as importers rather than buyers from a list, bring direct producer access to the selection, which skews heavily French. It is the retail and on-trade expression of an existing import business.

That sourcing logic extends to the food side. George Jephson's involvement signals a commitment to traditional preserving and curing disciplines, pâté en croûte in particular is a technique demanding precision in pastry, forcemeat seasoning, and temperature management, that sits within a broader revival of French charcuterie craft in London. The presence of a former St John chef in that partnership is notable: St John's influence on nose-to-tail and whole-animal thinking in British kitchens has been structural, and the ethos of using the whole product, wasting as little as possible, runs through charcuterie-making as a discipline. Rillettes, for instance, are by their nature a preservation and efficiency product, converting secondary cuts and fat into something long-lasting and highly seasoned. This is sustainability through technique rather than through branding.

The Week in Two Modes

Cadet operates with a structural distinction that most wine bars avoid: the format changes depending on the day. From Monday to Wednesday, the offer is closer to a bar with retail, where simple snacks accompany the wine selection. From Thursday through Sunday, a blackboard menu introduces a broader range of dishes, drawing on Smart's training, slip sole with Café de Paris butter, well-seasoned rillettes, pâté en croûte. The blackboard format lets dishes change with availability.

This format places Cadet in a comparable set that is distinct from London's formal restaurant tier. Cadet operates on an entirely different register, informal, counter-led, product-first. It is closer in spirit to a French cave à manger than to anything in the central London fine dining corridor. Dinner by Heston Blumenthal and the broader British gastronomic tradition it draws on are geographically and conceptually far removed from what Newington Green supports.

The Ethical Architecture of the Natural Wine Bar

The natural wine category carries an implicit sustainability argument: lower-intervention farming, reduced chemical inputs, and closer relationships between producer and importer. When a bar is co-owned by the importers themselves, that argument becomes structural rather than rhetorical. The wines at Cadet are not selected to be fashionable; they reflect the producer relationships that Beattie and Roberts have built, which in the natural wine context typically means smaller domaines, organic or biodynamic farming, and limited allocations. This is a supply chain with fewer intermediaries and more direct accountability than most retail wine operations.

On the food side, charcuterie as a category is inherently low-waste. The craft disciplines it demands, curing, confiting, potting, encasing, were developed precisely to extend the utility of an animal beyond its prime cuts. Pâté en croûte uses secondary meats and offal; rillettes use belly and shoulder; the pastry casing itself is structural rather than decorative. A kitchen built around these techniques is, by design, oriented toward full-product use. This is not a venue that has added a sustainability section to its website; the sustainability logic is baked into the product choices.

Newington Green and the Bar-Shop Hybrid

The shop element of Cadet matters beyond convenience. London's most interesting wine-adjacent retail operations have moved toward hybrid models, buy a bottle to take home, drink another at the bar, because it creates a customer relationship that outlasts the visit. The wine selections available to purchase are the same ones being poured, which aligns the retail and on-trade offer in a way that builds trust. A drinker who discovers a natural Burgundy or Loire white at the bar can take another bottle home; the importer relationship makes that direct. This model has become increasingly common in Paris and Lyon but remains relatively uncommon in London outside of a few specialists.

Beyond London, venues such as The Fat Duck in Bray, L'Enclume in Cartmel, Moor Hall in Aughton, Gidleigh Park in Chagford, Hand and Flowers in Marlow, and hide and fox in Saltwood represent the range of serious British dining beyond the capital. Internationally, Le Bernardin in New York City and Atomix in New York City offer a reference point for how importer-chef collaborations and counter-format dining operate in a different market context.