Fire, smoke, and seventeen tables.

The six counter seats facing the hearth are never bookable — they're first come, first seated, every single night. Show up before 18:30 or after 21:30 and your odds are honestly good. The seventeen tables, though: book those.

Tell us in the booking note or on the phone and the kitchen plans your plates before service starts — most dishes flex for nuts, dairy, gluten and shellfish with a day's notice. One honest caveat: it's a single open room with one fire, so we can't promise a trace-free environment for severe airborne allergies. We'd rather say that here than at your table.

Our celeriac steak spends three hours buried in the coals and regularly out-orders the Ibérico. Leeks, beetroot, the burnt cheesecake — about a third of the menu is vegetarian by design, not by garnish. Vegan? Call ahead and Ilka builds you a plate from that morning's market.

Until 20:00, absolutely — we have two high chairs, half portions of the bream, and a kitchen crew that thinks a six-year-old watching the fire is the best audience in the house. After 20:00 the room turns grown-up and loud, which is our gentle way of saying: book the early seating.

None. This is the Schanze, not a yacht club. You'll go home smelling faintly of woodsmoke whatever you wear — consider that the souvenir.