Settled amongst the urban landscape and Staffordshire canalside in Lichfield, The Boat is a restaurant and micro-farm by Chef Liam Dillon. Recommended in the Michelin guide, and noted in the Estrella Damm Top Gastropubs list, Liam’s cooking ethos is immersed in the seasonal and sustainable, showcasing the best of modern British food. Three Rosettes, notable wine list with AA & finalist in their sustainability award for 2024.
Over the last eight years, Liam has transformed what was a pub into a restaurant and micro-farm, which supplies the restaurant with a number of its produce, grown on site.
The micro-farm is Liam’s ode to sustainability and is constantly evolving to make the restaurant more self-sufficient. In its current iteration, the micro-farm includes 5 bee hives to provide honey and to help pollinate the rest of the garden, pigs are reared for their meat and to reduce waste from the restaurant, 24 hens provide a plentiful supply of eggs, and vegetable patches and polytunnels support year round vegetable growing, including unique crops such as cicely and wasabi.
In addition to this, Liam’s aquaponics project has been a long time in the making – a full ecosystem that farms trout/carp and then uses the bi-product to feed and grow crops. In a totally landlocked county, The Boat now plans to grow trout to use in the restaurant that is fed with organic feeds.
This produce, alongside other sustainable and locally sourced ingredients, form the ever-changing, seasonal menu for The Boat, where guests can choose a la carte or a short tasting menu for lunch, then a focused short or full tasting menu in the evenings.
Dining at the Boat
Split into snacks, starters, mains and sides, guests can expect the likes of Porthilly rock oysters, Cornish cod with confit leek, pickled alexanders and smoked dulse butter.
Mains feature Staffordshire lamb with Lichfield asparagus and crispy sweetbread and Cornish monkfish, brown shrimp & green peppercorn.
For dessert, indulge in Liam’s smoked cardamom panna cotta with garden raspberries or a Manjari chocolate parfait with sherry and artichoke ice cream.
Alternatively, opt for a selection of British cheese including Truffled Tunworth, St Andrew’s Cheddar, and Sparkenhoe Blue, paired with a root vegetable pickle, fig laminated roll and wholemeal crackers.
No good meal is complete without a good wine, and The Boat does not disappoint here. Continuing on the theme of sustainability, much of the wine comes from organic and biodynamic vineyards.
