Some evenings are better without much of a plan. One drink imperceptibly becomes three, dinner is delayed until a leisurely 9 pm, and before you know it, several hours have slipped away in a blur of low light and good conversation. At Templeton Garden, the setup makes this type of night almost inevitable. Its two-part offering — Sprout, an inventive cocktail lounge, and Pippin’s, a kitchen that takes the classics to the next level- gives you every reason to stay.
What Belongs in a Cocktail?
We can usually predict the sort of ingredients we’ll find on a cocktail menu: citrus, fresh herbs, and maybe something sweet for balance. Greek yoghurt and tomato jelly, however, seem far more likely to be incorporated in a meal, and hardly the obvious ingredients for the drink that comes before it.
Yet at Sprout, these ingredients feel right at home behind the bar. Here, the cocktail menu includes everything from gochujang and peppercorns to seasonal tomatoes, rhubarb, and honey. The combinations may sound deliberately provocative, but the logic is simple: rather than trying to reinvent familiar cocktails simply for the sake of it, they start with the produce. They begin with the season’s best and find a surprising way of incorporating it into the glass that, against all expectations, truly tastes delicious.
Drinking Outside the Lines
At Sprout, they forget whether a drink should start with a base spirit. They pick one anchor; it could be a seasonal vegetable, a specific acid, or even a colour, and from there, they build the glass around it. This unique approach shapes two perpetually evolving lists: the Market Stall menu, built around humble ingredients from across the UK and Europe, and a seasonal menu that captures produce at its peak before moving on to whatever nature offers next.
On paper, it makes for an intriguing menu that may make you slightly sceptical at times, which makes it all the more satisfying when it works.
Produce Behind the Bar
In practice, we end up with drinks like the Gochujang Cobbler. At first glance, mixing Rémy Martin VSOP and peach with fermented Korean chilli paste and Greek yoghurt may sound like experimentation gone a step too far. In reality, milk clarification strips the heat and leaves a smooth, savoury depth, proving that the blend of these disparate ingredients makes for a brilliant synergy.
On the other hand, their Kola Float doesn’t take much convincing. This cocktail, which could appear more like a dessert, takes Evan Williams bourbon and Sprout’s own cream cola and tops it with vanilla and honey ice cream – an adult Coke float.
But it is on the seasonal menu that Sprout’s produce-first philosophy becomes most obvious. In the Tomato Collins, San Marzano tomatoes are taken entirely out of their usual context of Italian kitchens and simmering sauces and instead are turned into a consommé for a cocktail glass. This is paired with a sweet strawberry wine, Courvoisier VSOP, and Aperol, with a thick piece of tomato jelly that leaves no ambiguity about what you are drinking.
And those are hardly the limits of the experimentation. Madeleines and brown butter find their way into the Madeleine Swizzle, while the Cranberry Sbagliato combines charred cranberry chutney with radicchio bubbles. It seems that, for Sprout, there is no real distinction between ingredients meant for the dinner plate and those that belong in a cocktail glass.
The Kitchen at Pippin’s
Newly enlightened on the possibilities of a cocktail, the evening continues just across the way at Pippin’s, Templeton Garden’s restaurant overlooking its gorgeous, secluded garden. Although this menu doesn’t require as much deciphering as the last, the dinner reveals its own creativity.
On any given night, a table at Pippin’s displays the timeline of chef Jacob Rowley’s career. Take the crab omelette. An omelette is generally a simple dish, but here, it brings sweet crab together with rich béarnaise, making it a decadent combination you’re unlikely to encounter on many menus. Next to it is a charred aubergine heavy with North African harissa, or crispy croquettes that are dipped into a punchy Spanish romesco.
More classic ground comes with the Angus steak tartare, which is stripped back to red onion and Cognac, the latter giving the raw beef a boozy warmth. Meanwhile, the chicken escalope is covered in a sage and brown butter emulsion that gives a deep and nutty flavour to an otherwise familiar dish. The food is not bound by British tradition; he just takes the favourites and collides them with the global tastes and techniques he’s added to his arsenal over the years.
Yet there is plenty of room for straightforward pleasure, too. The Templeton grilled burger piles smoked Applewood cheese, pickles, gem lettuce and secret sauce alongside a generous portion of skin-on fries, while beer-battered haddock comes with chips, crushed peas and tartare sauce.
The multicultural combinations continue right to the Matcha Basque Cheesecake. This indulgent dish marries the familiar burnt edges and creamy centre of the Spanish classic to the earthy Japanese matcha. That slight bitterness cuts through some of the cheesecake’s richness, and it is served alongside a scoop of honey ice cream to return some sweetness in each bite. For a deeper flavour profile, the Dark Chocolate and Cherry Delice brings together the natural pairing of bitter chocolate and fruit. Yet, Pippin’s stays true to British roots by leaning into nostalgic favourites including its trifle and Earl Grey custard tart.
Where Creativity Meets Comfort
It turns out the distance between a cocktail glass and a dinner plate is only a few steps across Templeton Garden. At Sprout, the rules of the cocktail glass are stretched until tomato consommé belongs in a Collins and gochujang beside Cognac. Across the way, Pippin’s takes that freedom elsewhere, as it moves comfortably from béarnaise and brown butter to harissa, romesco and matcha without letting go of its British footing. For all the liberties they take, Sprout and Pippin’s never lose sight of the fact that creativity means very little if it gets in the way of pleasure—because here, you’ll always want another sip or another bite.
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All images courtesy of Sprout and Pippin’s.