6 The Stagg Inn

With just about everything made on the premises, diners travel from all over the UK to sample the Stagg Inn's award-winning dishes. David Hancock reports

The Stagg Inn Titley, Herefordshire. Tel:01544 230221, www.thestagg.co.uk

Tiny Titley stands lost amid remote and unspoilt Welsh border country, yet its rustic roadside pub, the Stagg Inn, ranks among the best food pubs in Britain. It is the domain of local boy and Roux-trained chef Steve Reynolds, whose passion for food earned the Stagg a prestigious Michelin star in 2001, the first to be awarded to a pub.

Steve and wife Nicola headed back to Herefordshire and bought Stagg in 1998 and have since turned it into a shrine for classy pub food and the best of local produce. Steve delves deep into the treasure trove of fine raw materials that the Welsh Borders has to offer, sourcing meat and game from local farms and estates, including organic rare-breed pork and free-range poultry, organic fruits and vegetables from market gardeners, and the pub's own garden is packed with fresh herbs and vegetables. Their list of Welsh and Herefordshire unpasteurised cheeses won the "Best British Cheese Board" in 2003.

Steve produces seasonally-influenced menus that are simply described, and he makes just about everything on the premises, including bread and preserves. More importantly, he has an assured, yet restrained touch, allowing flavours to shine through. Such culinary pedigree shows in dishes such as saddle of venison with wild mushrooms and kummel, and tenderloin of pork stuffed with dried fruits with sherry vinaigrette.

Sourcing locally doesn't stop at the food. The raft of drinks available in the bar takes in locally-brewed Hobsons ales, Dunkerton's traditional cider and perry, Ralph's Radnor cider, and home-made damson and sloe gins.

Gastro-pub heaven the Stagg certainly is, but it also plays host to ale and cider-drinking farmers alongside avid restaurant tourists. Surroundings are suitably informal throughout, but the bar retains its traditional atmosphere, with half-panelled walls thick beams hung with jugs, and a wood burning stove.

If you've driven miles just for dinner at the Stagg, why not stay the night? There are two en-suite rooms upstairs, and two more along the road at Steve's mum's place - the Old Vicarage overlooking Titley church. Now that's some "pub with rooms".

Behind the scenes at...The Stagg

Owners/licensees:​ Steve & Nicola Reynolds (free house)

Head chef:​ Steve Reynolds

Covers a week:​ 450

Covers for diners:​ 65 plus 20 outside

Best-selling dishes:​ Partridge, poached pears, star anise, pearl barley; Herefordshire beef fillet, celeriac purée, red wine sauce

Top tip:​ "Listening to, and cooking for, the customer rather than for the guidebooks, and focusing on sourcing top-notch local and seasonal produce."

Best business ideas/innovation:​ "Extending the bedroom side of the business and creating more space for drinkers in the bar as the Stagg is first and foremost a pub, not a restaurant."

New for 2006:​ Developing a half-acre of vegetable garden at the Old Vicarage that will supply vegetable and herbs direct to the kitchen.

On the menu...

Seared scallops, parsnip purée & black pepper oil, £6.50 Pork tenderloin stuffed with dried fruits & sherry vinaigrette, £13.50 Passion fruit jelly & panna cotta, £4.50

Recipe

Trout tartare with tomato butter Makes 4 portions​

Ingredients​

4 whole trout,

1 cucumber - peeled, deseeded and cut into

½ cm dice

4 quail eggs

2 small gherkins - finely diced

Chopped herbs - parsley, dill and chervil

Juice of 1 lemon,

Mayonnaise

2 tsp keta caviar

2 plum tomatoes

200g/7oz butter

Salt

Sugar

Method​

Gut, fillet, pin bone and wash trout. Lightly cover trout with sea salt and cure for one hour. Wash off salt and pat dry, skin trout and dice up in to ½ cm cubes. Add to that the cucumber, herbs, gherkins, lemon juice and mayonnaise and season to taste. Set aside. Cook quail eggs in boiling, salted water for 1 minute until soft boiled. Refresh and peel and set aside. Purée tomato and pass through a sieve, discarding the seeds. Warm tomato and whisk in butter like a burre blanc until the tomato thickens. Season to taste with salt and sugar and keep warm. Place a 6cm ring in centre of a plate, spoon in some of the trout mix, place quail egg in the middle and then more trout on top of that to the top of the ring. Place ½ tsp of caviar on top and drizzle butter around.