No traps at the Ratcatchers

Health and safety comes first in the minds of the McCarters who strive for fine food and service at their Norfolk pub. NIGEL HUDDLESTON reports Most pub-restaurants pride themselves on the quality of the ingredients and the artistry of the kitchen staff. Not quite so many are as eager to talk up their approach to health and safety to quite the degree that Peter and Denise McCarter do at the Ratcatchers in Cawston, Norfolk. Perhaps it's something to do with the pub's historic links with pest control that keep health-and-safety issues at front of mind. The Ratcatchers got its name because men of that profession used to meet in front of the pub in the 19th century to sell rat tails for a penny a piece to council officials to prove they had been doing their job properly. Denise is particularly eager to promote health-and-safety awareness among staff, both front of house and in the kitchen. She says: "I suppose it came from my background in nursing. When I came here, I went on a course on health and safety and approached someone on the course to come and do a risk assessment of the pub because I knew they might notice things we wouldn't, being close to it." Of course, the kitchen is where there's significant risk, both to staff working in it and in food preparation. Denise says: "I went to London with Andrew Picton [joint head chef] when he was doing a cook-off, and he said being a chef is like having people's life in your hands'. You can nurse a patient with a minor illness and if you do something wrong they can die. You have to be just as aware of the risks when you're working in a pub kitchen, and I was so proud that it was my chef saying it." But risk assessment and awareness doesn't begin and end in the kitchen. "It can be something like making sure all the curtains are fire retardant. It's everything that effects the staff, the customer and the buildings. Of course there are accidents, but there will be someone on the staff who knows what to do." Key to that is staff training and the Ratcatchers has adopted something of a pioneering spirit in its use of new technology to do that. It's teamed up with local computer games developer Maverick Developments to produce a virtual-reality version of the Ratcatchers on CD-Rom. Staff can sit at a computer and walk around the pub identifying risks, such as loose floor tiles and boxes in front of fire exits, and answering questions on best practice. Maverick has now included the Ratcatchers footage on a commercially-available package covering a variety of industries, including construction, distribution and retailing. Maverick director Phil Daniels says: "Tradition-ally for health-and-safety training, you'd have a couple of hours talking and then show someone a video, but ultimately it just sends people to sleep. "This is fun, and people can learn at their own pace and go back and look at what they've learnt." One of the other business approaches that keeps the Ratcatchers ahead is a commitment to high standards of customer service. Peter says: "It's always trying to be one step ahead, so the customer doesn't have to ask for something. It doesn't take a lot." But it does involve thinking outside the box from time to time. Staff will discreetly ask customers known to be recovering from a stroke whether they'd like their food cut up in the kitchen, for example. And Braille menus have been available for several years. Denise says: "When we first walked in, I saw a customer of 33 having the menu read to her. After that, I decided that just wasn't going to happen in my pub, because it meant she was being treated differently." Obviously you're doing something right when a leading light in the food world, such as Delia Smith (who always has steak-and-ale pie), is among your frequent visitors. "We have celebrity customers, but they get treated the same as everyone else," says Peter. Denise adds: "Customers come back because they see their money being used to add to the business: they see new carpets, they see the toilets are being refurbished. What they don't see is us showing off new cars or the like. We give the customers ownership of the pub." The staff are made to feel like it's their business too, with no single member of the team more important than the other. "I don't want a position where it's us and them," says Denise. "I want a waitress to feel it's a career not a job. If they find a course they want to go on, they can. "Our bar manager went on a course to handle the media. We've had the fire brigade on the car park doing fire training. It stops the divide between front and back of house. Our washer-up is a first-aid trained and she isn't just a washer-up' because I won't have anyone called just' anything. When she doesn't wash up, the chef doesn't get his clean pots and pans." And those pots and pans are a vital and a healthy cog in the Ratcatchers' machinery. The Ratcatchers' temptations The Ratcatchers' menu is mainly British, with a twist in the form of Continental and Oriental influences. There are classic starters and main courses, a range of home-made pies and a vegetarian selection that leaves the trade's bog-standard lasagne and salad in the shade. Blackboard specials range from pheasant and wild duck paté to chorizo stew with gruyère brioche. The biggest mistake pubs can make is to try to over-complicate things, says Peter McCarter. "It's simple," he says, "you get good quality food coming in the back door, good quality chefs, good quality waiting staff, good organisation and we treat everyone like it's their business." Local sourcing of produce means high quality says Peter. "We can tell you where the meat is from, through full traceability ­ the farmer, the slaughterer, even the local vet." Peter may not be from the culinary creative school of chef patrons, admitting to a beans-on-toast level of cooking skill, but he still gets plenty of satisfaction from seeing the reaction to his chefs' work. "I love the job. You can work as hard as you like and be knackered, but when a customer comes up and says thank you' it makes it worthwhile.