Gastro mole

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Lucy Britner checks out Moleface Pub Co's innovative new gastropub in Nottingham Chips cooked in dripping and crispy pork scratchings, herb plants in...

Lucy Britner checks out Moleface Pub Co's innovative new gastropub in Nottingham

Chips cooked in dripping and crispy pork scratchings, herb plants in windows and chef viewing hatches, re-covered chairs in old fashioned chinz - these are a few of my favourite Moleface things.

And there is certainly plenty of innovative ideas to choose from at Moleface Pub Com-pany's first gastropub, the Larwood & Voce in West Bridgford, next to the Trent Bridge cricket ground.

Other crowd pleasers include: a big TV screen for customers to watch chefs creating their meals; writing specials on a tear-off paper roll attached to the wall; and sweets served from behind the bar in brown paper bags.

The gastropub, which is a Punch lease and opened in June, is one of five planned by Moleface to open in the next five years. The company's chef/director John Molnar, or "mole face" as he is called by a family friend, has certainly done his homework.

He says: "We took five or six trips down to London and went to all the original gastropubs. We wanted to bring the idea to Nottingham. I love the Anchor & Hope and that was a big influence."

Background

Moleface was set up earlier this year by Matt Saunders and Simon Patterson - the co-founders of the Fat Cat Group of bars - and Matthew Cullen and John Molnar, who was executive chef at Fat Cat.

The quartet invested £50,000 each into the leasehold and refurbishment of the Larwood

& Voce.

"I loved working at Fat Cat and we also used to run a chain of cocktail and fine-dining bars called Blues - which is where my culinary skills were used the most. When we sold Blues about a year ago, I told Matt, Simon and Matthew that I wanted another foodie project. Moleface is more about suburban pubs than city-centre venues like Fat Cat," says John.

Grand designs

John and the team knocked down walls, re-covered all the pub's old furniture with dark leather on the bar side and bright country-cottage chintz on the dining side.

Blackboards are dotted around with daily changing specials and the plants have been replaced by herb plants.

The menu

John says when they looked at the location, they looked around to see what was on offer in Bridgford. He says: "There's lots of Indian, Chinese and Italian cuisine, but no one was really doing British pub food."

He wanted to make popping out for an English easy, so he kept local trade with real ales and traditional bar snacks such as a pint of prawns (£6.95) and devilled kidneys on toast (£5.50).

"Now we've got a computer we can change the menu every couple of days, if we want to. We've got to leave it for a while to let it bed in. We tend to cook whatever's good, what's in season and what we can get hold of.

"We've been in touch with the local allotment and hopefully we will be getting all their excess vegetables, so we can put things like locally-grown parsnip soup on the menu."

Local ingredients like flour from Tuxford Mill and cheese from neighbouring Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire appear on the menu.

John cooks food he enjoys eating and gets his inspiration from traditional cooking methods and the chefs that have championed them.

"I love St John. Fergus Henderson is a great chef and I think people are coming back to that traditional way of eating. We use cheap cuts of meat like lamb belly and pig cheeks and I've put devilled kidneys, potted salmon and a pie of the day on the blackboard."

Sharing dishes and gathering families around the same table are also very high on John's list of priorities.

"I can't wait for Autumn. I want to do fish pie for two, hot and cold fish platters, racks of lamb for two and steak and suet pudding for two. We already do a monkfish for two with wilted spinach and new potatoes (£27.50) and it has been really popular."

Staff stuff

Getting a pub this size, and this ambitious, off the ground isn't a small job. John told his team they were in for six weeks of solid graft before the teething problems would be ironed out and things would settle down.

"We have a laugh and we're all learning about this place together. I want to keep front of house and kitchen staff as a tight unit - rather than 'us and them'."

There's four in the kitchen and usually the same out front - depending on the day.

"I plan to set up a scheme where someone from the kitchen and someone from front of house go out and eat together. We'd give them £100 for the meal and then they can come and give us some feedback. I want to have staff meetings once a month and I am trying to get it so that everyone sits down together for a roast on Sundays, at about 5pm."

Next steps

The Moleface team wants another site within the next six months and with the Larwood & Voce already turning over nearly twice their £9,000 original weekly estimation - John's starting to get very excited.

"We'll probably start looking in three months time. We want to keep it East Midlands - just for the logistics of staff really and Punch has already approached us twice with some possibilities. We hope one of the five we plan to open will be a freehold."

John's plans to make the Larwood & Voce a community cornerstone in West Bridgford include cookery classes for adults and children, all-day trading including afternoon teas and smoothies and a Sunday evening cheeseboard on the end of the bar. Now, for people of Nottingham, popping out for an English couldn't be easier.

Chef's CV

John Molnar's career took off at Risley Hall in Derbyshire in 1995. He was head chef and the restaurant picked up two AA rosettes. He went to work as a chef in Bermuda for a year, before returning to help set up Watsons restaurant in Leicester. He has been executive chef at Fat Cat for six years and chef/director at Moleface for about five months. Many staff members at MoleFace have been with John since his days at Risley Hall.

"I wanted to move into pubs because there's less pressure - you've got drinkers too. It's easier to control and I like the pub environment and the traditional values.

On the menu

Dinner

Starters

Organic watercress soup, Manor Farm yoghurt (£4)

Potted duck, home-made piccalilli and toast (£5.50)

Grilled diver scallop and spinach Thermidor (£6.95/£13.95)

Mains

Old Spot pork faggots, mashed swede

& onion gravy (£9.50)

Grilled Cornish lemon sole, mash, leeks

& mussels (£12.50)

Roast breast of chicken, creamy vegetables & crispy bacon (£10.50)