A family affair

It's been a decade since Cliff Nye opened the White Horse, in Brancaster Staithe, Norfolk, a pub renowned for its views of the coast and quality seafood.

However, as he has lived most of his life in north Hertfordshire and believed that there was a dearth of good food pubs in the area, he decided to put matters right and opened the Fox at Willian two years ago.

"I felt strongly that the area, with the exception of high-street chain restaurants and bars, didn't have any decent pubs where the locals could go and eat good fresh food. The patch in and around the village of Willian is not only commuter belt territory, but the people also have expendable income. With the benefit of the first pub under my belt, I thought it would make sense to open a pub here and bring to Hertfordshire a bit of what's made the White Horse so good."

He set his sights on a run-down Willian pub that had been controlled and run by several brewers and landlords over the years. He spent £400,000 on installing a new kitchen, refurbishing most of the 65-seater dining room and creating clean and reasonable-looking toilets.

The pub soon benefitted from input from the rest of the Nye family. Cliff's wife, Tina, helped give the place an earthy interior design while daughter Gemma, who teaches art, hung some of her paintings. His son, James, who had initially decided to go into antique gun evaluation, now helps run the business.

"We opened in August 2004 and hit the ground running," says Cliff. "Traditionally, as everyone knows, the summer months when children are on holiday are slow in terms of business takings, yet we were packed every night. It's as if we had caught on to a real need in the area."

Although Cliff continues to get the seafood, such as dredge mussels and oysters, for the Fox from his Norfolk suppliers, one hurdle which he didn't expect was the slow reaction of the local suppliers in Hertfordshire.

"Over the years, I've found that Norfolk suppliers have become commercial, but I didn't find that locally here. It's not as though there aren't quality farms and growers in Hertfordshire because there are. It's just that they have been more used to selling produce at a low volume via farmer's markets and so on. For someone running a pub with a 100 customers to cater for daily, the feedback needs to be quick and at high volume. So I've almost had to nurture the local producers."

The Fox's menu, devised by head chef Hari Kodogadu, who is of Sri Lankan origin, takes a modern British approach with global influences and changes as often as possible to incorporate seasonal produce and what is freshly available in any given week, especially fish. The big sellers on the menu include lobster, oysters and home-smoked salmon.

"When Hari first joined the Fox," says Cliff, "he said to me that one day he will leave to run his own place. He's passionate and also likes to experiment. I told him that being a chef is 60% management and 30% food and he certainly runs a good team in the kitchen. Because we make our own breads and desserts, which is more economical than buying, we try and give incentives to some young kitchen staff by having a 'bread-maker of the month' competition. They really get into it with the result that we have some excellent tasting bread for customers, with rosemary and olive flavours."

As he reminisces, Cliff notes that he couldn't have been more pleased opening a pub in a county he loves.

"We've got what one might call a posh village pub in the Fox, but it's still a village pub, so there is nothing pretentious about it. We even get the local rugby team coming here. You can't ask for more, can you?"

107, 108

ON THE MENU

Starters

Half a dozen Brancaster oysters with

coconut, lime and coriander crust (£5.25)

Pan-fried woodland pigeon breast with parsnip purée, puy lentils and port dressing (£5.25)

Mains

Poached halibut with caraway crème fraiche, leeks and sautéed new potatoes (£15.95)

Roast rack of lamb with butter crust, char grilled polenta & ratatouille (£16.75)

Desserts

Chocolate and black cherry mousse (£4.95)

Vanilla and lemongrass crème brûlée (£4.95)

The Fox: Facts 'n' Stats

Covers per week: 360 lunch, 420 dinner

Turnover: £800,000

Average food spend per head: £10 to £15 lunch, £25 to £30 dinner

Wet:dry split: 45%:55%

Beers: all draught - Adnams, London Pride, guest ales

Wines: 25 white (seven by the glass) 25 red (six by the glass)

Owner: Cliff Nye

Best business idea in the past year:

"Initially, we had two separate menus at lunchtimes, one for the bar and the other for the restaurant. Unfortunately, this caused some frustration in the kitchen in terms of which we should prioritise. So we decided to have just the one menu for lunch, but gave customers the choice to sit wherever they wanted. In the end it worked quite well

because customers who sit in the bar area tend to order cheap and simple items

whereas restaurant patrons in the dining room seem to opt for more expensive dishes."