Pub grub firmly on the menu for Rick Stein

Rick Stein has pledged to offer proper pub food at good value prices at his new pub in Cornwall.

Speaking at the official opening of the Cornish Arms in St Merryn, Stein said: "The reason I've opened the pub is to spotlight the quality of traditional British pub food.

"We hear all the time about pubs closing, and I wanted to make a show of support for the trade."

Rick and Jill Stein have taken on a 15 year lease on the pub with St Austell Brewery. The village is just two miles from Padstow, where the couple have a number of businesses, but the TV chef said he expects to appeal to a different market.

"The pub has much more of a local appeal. There was some concern that we'd change it - but I've drunk in this pub since I was 18 and I wouldn't want to see it change. The menu is all about traditional pub food."

The pub's best seller is expected to be scampi and chips in the basket, priced at £8.95 and hand-breaded in the pub's kitchen.

Other dishes include steak pie made with St Austell's Tribute ale, also at £8.95, and mussels and chips with the brewery's Clouded Yellow ale as its recommended match - sold at £6.95 as a starter or £13.50 as a main course

Two of Stein's protégés have also recently joined St Austell. Paul Ripley has taken a lease of the 15th century St Kew Inn in the Cornish village of the same name, while Mark Devonshre has been appointed head chef at the Pedn Olva hotel in St Ives.