I'd rather be sitting in a pub

Giles Coren, The Times restaurant critic, tucks into a debate with Mark Taylor on the gastro-pub phenomenon

What are your earliest memories of dining in pubs?​

I remember my parents taking me to a pub in the New Forest as a kid. There was a big garden at the back, but my sister and I would usually have to sit in the car park. I would have ham, egg and chips, followed by a bright green, chocolate-coated mint ice cream. I can still remember hammering and hammering at this ice cream because it had been served straight from the freezer and was rock hard. Even into my early 20s, I wasn't eating out that much and usually went to places like Pizza Express, but I'd been to a few nice food pubs in the country, especially Norfolk.

When did you first become aware of gastro pubs?​

In 1993, I was still a student at Oxford, but I wrote a column in The Independent​ call Pub Life. they used to grumble that I always used to write about London, but I think they paid £75 without expenses so on what basis was I supposed to be travelling the country reviewing pubs? Around this time, I started to go to some of the London gastro pubs. I never went to the Eagle, but I visited the Lansdowne, the Engineer and the Cow. The Lansdowne in Primrose Hill was a pub I had been drinking in since I was a kid, but it was a bit too scary to play pool in because there were often strippers there. I remember seeing my first strippagram in there, when I was about 16. Then one day it had a dining room upstairs, big wooden tables and they were servingmanzanilla in the wrong kind of glasses. It had all become very posh9and I remember wondering at the time "what do they think they're doing?".

Why do you think gastro pubs are so popular?​

I think it all started when the breweries began selling pubs to independents. Of course, what was depressing was that as soon as gastro pubs started to work, the breweries began to buy them back again. What we ended up with was these pubs that look like gastro pubs but aren't, and thats what I militate against most.

What are the tell-tale signs of a 'fake' gastro pub?​

Walk into a gastro pub, look at the menu on the wall, lick your finger and swipe the special of the day and see if it comes off. These companies send out painted blackboards that are supposed to look handwritten. You want to take it off the wall and crack it over the head of the chef.

How have gastro pubs contributed to the nation's dining culture?​

Britain was unique in that it had no eating-out culture, only a drinking-out culture. By and large, no other country in Europe had this. Go to a German bierkeller and they'll always have bratwurst, cheese and bread, French bars will always have a croque-monsieur. We were just a nation of alcoholics, lagging behind Europe. But then suddenly people wanted to eat out. It also started to change because more people were drinking wine.

But don't you lament the loss of the old boozers?​

It's a blatantly stupid thing simply to go out to drink. I used to do it, of course, but only a race of ambitionless morons would do it. People still say "why don't they bring back the good old pubs?", but in those days, women would have their husband's tea on the table for 6pm, but he'd come back after nine pints, knock her about and fall asleep in front of the telly. That's just unspeakable, so if food has saved us from that, then it must be a good thing.

What are the top crimes against good food on gastro-pub menus?​

Well, I don't care if I never see another lamb shank again and I hate seeing cod and chips on menus, mainly because you shouldn't eat cod unless it comes from sustainable Icelandic fisheries. Fish and chips always tastes better from fish and chip shops, but middle class people in gastro pubs always say "oh, how marvellous, fish and chips," when they could have had that on the way to the pub. I also hate seeing a pot of olive oil with a drizzle of balsamic on the table. Balsamic vinegar has no role in any grownup's life.

And what about menu descriptions? What annoys you?​

I don't like aggressively-masculine terminology. It was something that started with the marketing of male cosmetics in the late 1980s. Brands such as Clinique would describe male perfume or male moisturiser with adverts that basically said: 'When you've had a big, heavy night out, you're out of it and you look craggy, slap it on and you'll look great so you can get laid tonight". This now happens on menus so you get descriptions like "Chunky pig broth" or "wok-seared koala fillets finished in a jus of balsamic".

Have you been impressed by the sourcing of ingredients in gastro pubs?​

Generally speaking, I think gastro pubs have been constructive in terms of sourcing, but there are those sheep in wolf's clothing who aren't. I generally think the independent gastro pubs are good on sourcing. If you ask the more right-wing restaurant critics such as AA Gill, they would find words like "Middlewhite", "Dorset" or "grass-fed" irritating and they would probably say "I don't give a damn". Personally, I think it's lovely to see this on a menu and I want to know as much about where the animal came from as possible. I don't really give two figs about what they've done to it in the kitchen. Why do chefs tell you what it's been marinated in? I don't need to know what it's been marinated in. You get people who marinate chicken in lemon and garlic and whatever overnight and then they cook it to black on the grill and all you can taste is charcoal.

Has the gastro-pub bubble burst?​

I don't think the bubble can burst. I think they're absolutely brilliant. There are a lot of posh restaurants that have got into the "honest, chunky fare" thing, but I'd rather be sitting in a pub, on a big wooden table, with the sun coming in and a pint, reading the Sunday Times sport section, waiting for my shepherd's pie. I don't want to eat shepherd's pie with a side order of peas in some poncy place full of French people and waiters with moustaches.