Chantelle Nicholson announces The Cordia Collective

The Cordia Collective, a new culinary venture from Green Michelin-starred chef Chantelle Nicholson, will launch in spring 2025.

Located within the 2,300-acre Borde Hill estate in West Sussex, the project will bring Nicholson’s regenerative ethos into the English countryside for the first time.

Inspired by nature's seasonal changes, the project will continually evolve, starting as a bakery and Garden Café before developing into a glasshouse restaurant, café, wine bar and workshop space, located in the former stables, next autumn. Produce from the estate’s biodynamic market garden will be used in the beautifully restored walled kitchen garden.

The Collective

Joining forces with Nicholson is Ruth Osborne, co-founder of London’s Wine Car Boot. She brings a wide range of experience, including overseeing wastED for Dan Barber’s Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Osborne recently returned from seven years in Stockholm, where she ran a project looking at local resilience, land equity, farming and how to create a new blueprint for future food systems, all while owning a restaurant geared towards circularity and reducing waste. 

‘Baked by Cordia’ will mark the start of the journey at Borde Hill, headed up by acclaimed baker Janine Edwards, formerly of Little Bread Pedlar, Darby’s and, most recently, London’s much-loved Toklas Bakery. The bakery will offer beautifully crafted bread, pastries and other sweet treats, as well as daily-changing lunch options. 

Later in the year, The Cordia Collective will take up roots in the estate’s 118-year-old Victorian stables, transformed into a new café and workshop space. The addition of a destination glasshouse restaurant will overlook the reimagined biodynamic walled kitchen garden. With a clear focus on regenerative principles, menus will highlight responsible sourcing and champion small-scale farmers and ingredients grown from seed in the garden itself, or from nearby fields.

The drinks programme will include local Sussex producers, low-intervention wines and garden-led cocktails and spritzes. A terrace will accommodate outdoor seating, where guests can immerse themselves in the estate’s collection of Champion Trees and rare plant species.

“To have the opportunity to be in the heart of nature and work in tandem with the terroir and seasons is a true realisation of a dream," says Nicholson. "I can’t wait to immerse myself in it all and, alongside Ruth, create a new, dynamic collection of nature with delicious food and drink, and warm hospitality, welcoming guests from near and far to share this experience with us next year."

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