Classic Food Pub of the Year 2009: The Royal Standard of England, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire
Even the effort of finding the Royal Standard of England contributes to the experience of a special kind of pub. Tucked away in the leafy lanes of Buckinghamshire this is the quintessential old English pub, trading as an ale house for nine centuries and squeezing every ounce of quaintness and quirkiness from its 12th century timbers.
Yet it's not just the great building that earned the Standard the title of Publican Awards Pub of the Year in March. Since he took over there, freeholder Matthew O'Keefe has made sure the food he serves meets the expectations promised by the architecture.
This is, as he describes it, traditional food without the twist, grandma's cooking at its best.
You might start with devilled lamb's kidneys on toast, smoked salmon or mussels. Then the main courses are a roll-call of pub favourites - fish & chips, steak & kidney pudding, sausage & mash, liver & bacon, ham, egg & chips, shepherd's pie or rib steak. Follow that with treacle tart, sticky toffee pudding, apple crumble or spotted dick and you have had a classic traditional pub meal.
Sunday lunch is understandably a big occasion at the Standard with classic roasts featuring beef, lamb, pork and venison.
It may be simple cooking without the fancy twists but the Standard menu sets itself apart through sourcing the highest quality ingredients from those who understand what the pub is trying to do.
Where possible, quality is found locally and the chefs visit farms and abbatoirs to develop a closer relationship with suppliers giving them feedback and sharing marketing initiatives. The pub is also a member of the British Skippers Scheme, receiving emails about the latest catch straight from the boats.
The Standard makes its own sausages, pastry and ice cream and seeks out local specialities, such as Buckinghamshire Bacon Badger or Chiltern Hills Pudding. It will often buy a whole carcass and find a use for every part of it rather than just buying cuts, creating offal and mutton dishes for instance.
Customers can easily find themselves at the other end of the supply chain thanks to the Standard's 'you catch it, we cook it' scheme which swaps meals for game or fish brought in by locals.
Nor is O'Keefe afraid of a little innovative marketing. When the pub's chicken, leek & mushroom pie found its way onto a popular TV crime series it was swiftly re-named the Midsomer Murder Resurrection Pie!
The customer experience is completed by efficient service from staff well trained in product knowledge and confident to tell the story of the dish, and, of course, a range of traditional ales and even locally-brewed lagers.
