08/08/2026
Wild Irish Foragers
Sole Producers of Pontack in Ireland
“Originally created in England by a Frenchman for an Irishman”
Pontack is a 300-year-old Elderberry reduction recipe that was created in the 17th century by a Monsieur Pontack who opened the first eating house/restaurant in Lombard Street in London called The Pontack Arms. Pontack was originally developed for use with game meats, but it also makes a lovely salad dressing mixed with a good oil, can be drizzled over roasted vegetables or a little drop added to a stew /gravy for a richness of flavour. Quite nice to drizzle a wee drop over poached pears & stilton. Pontack is used in small portions.
THE HISTORY OF PONTACK
François-Auguste de Pontac (1636-1694) was the last Pontac to own Haut Brion through direct inheritance. He served as President of the Parliament in Bordeaux in 1653 but in 1666 he came to London and opened a tavern to promote his wines, called the “Enseigne de Pontac” or “Pontacks Head”. The tavern was situated in Abchurch Lane and François-Auguste displayed a picture of his father’s head as the inn sign. This was no ordinary tavern as the Pontack’s Head had a fashionable place in London society where John Locke, Daniel Defoe and Swift came to eat and drink.
Legend has it that Francois-Auguste de Pontac created Pontack sauce for one of his regular customers Jonathan Swift as Swift had a preference for Game meats (Hence, the line “created in London by a Frenchman for an Irishman”).
The Pontack’s Head stayed in the family for 200 years and The Gentleman’s Magazine of 1811 says that it was a fashionable, genteel eating house which was “the first public place where persons could bespeak a dinner from 4 to 5 shillings a head, to a guinea”. The Fellows of the Royal Society dined at Pontack’s until 1746 and Mr. Burn tells us in Metamorphoses of the Town in 1731, of Pontack’s “ragout of fatted snails,” and “chickens not two hours from the shell.”
François-Auguste was described as an eminent French cook, handsome, sensual, educated and wealthy. William Hogarth, the painter, satirist and cartoonist is said to have paid François-Auguste a compliment in the third plate of his Rake’s Progress series. The room of that boisterous scene is adorned with pictures of the Roman Emperors – amongst them hangs the portrait of François-Auguste.
There is one last legacy that François-Auguste left us – Pontack Sauce, made from elderberries and spices and said to be the perfect accompaniment to rich game.
