Gastropubs hog the limelight

The constant focus on gastropub food overshadows the vast improvements in pub grub in general. says Roger Protz.

Trish McManus, you are not alone. The licensee of the Hare Arms in Stow Bardolph, Norfolk, said last week (MA, Guv'nor) "gastropub — how I detest that word".

You and me both, Trish. From my experience of these eateries, starting with the Eagle in Farringdon Road, London, which claims to be the first of the breed, such places rapidly cease to have any connection with pubs. I would describe the Eagle as a brasserie or a café bar, but not a pub as we know it.

Gastropubs bring out the worst in people. By worst, I mean rampant snobbery. The official history of the Eagle, written by founder David Eyre, describes the pub as gloomy and covered in grime when he took it over. That's an insult to the former owners, Banks & Taylor brewery in Bedfordshire.

I knew the pub well, which was popular with journalists from The Guardian a few doors away. It was clean, well maintained, sold good pub grub, fine beer and offered a warm welcome to customers. To describe it as gloomy and grimy is to rewrite history as well as

insulting Martin Ayres and Mike Desquesnes at B&T.

From time to time, restaurant reviewers in the posh papers lower themselves down the social order for a few hours and enter the portals of a pub. It's nearly always a gastropub and even then they are dismissive of the bar area. For example, writing recently in The Independent on Sunday about the Pot Kiln in Berkshire, Amol Rajan said the pub had once been "a drinking hole for toiling labourers" and described the current beer drinkers as "belching at the bar".

Holding his nose, he hurried past these foul apologies for humans and entered the restaurant where he and his guest spent £130 on their meal, accompanied by six glasses of wine. It's not a bad job when a newspaper gives you a gold credit card to fill your gut. Had Mr Rajan consumed less wine he might have avoided the error of reporting that the Pot Kiln brewed its own beer: it hasn't for several years. It runs the West Berkshire Brewery from a separate site — but we mustn't let a few glasses of claret stand in the way of the facts.

The coverage given to gastropubs ignores the great strides taken by proper pubs in recent years where food is concerned. On his Radio 2 programme last week, Steve Wright reflected on the fact that 20 years ago most people would take their lunch in a pub where hot food would set them up for the afternoon. Today many workers eat at their desks.

Even worse: is there a sadder sight than someone sitting cramped in a car and peeling the plastic wrapping from a factory-farmed sandwich? The food is low in protein and the eater gets no exercise to help digest the apology for food.

Pub food has improved out of all recognition in recent years. Do you remember the old joke about a man entering a pub and finding the regulars lustily singing Happy Birthday to You. "Whose birthday is it?" the newcomer enquires. "It's the cheese sandwich," the licensee says. "It's 10 years old today!"

Pub grub is no longer a joke. You can eat well from imaginative menus in many pubs and at a fraction of the price of restaurants. You don't need to overspend on the plastic.

Pub food​

Old pub staples such as steak and ale pie are still in great demand, but menus now offer the likes of pasta dishes, fresh fish, filled baguettes and ciabatta, and the ever-popular curry.

The menu of a pub I have visited, the Butchers Arms in Woolhope, Herefordshire, shows just how dramatically pub menus have improved: whitebait, mushroom biryani, venison sausage & mash, fish pie, bass with lemon and parsley, and pork loin with apple cream and brandy sauce, to name just a few dishes.

Vegetarians are not forgotten by most sensible licensees. A friend tells me he still chuckles when he recalls the time I reported on my wife's visit to the Elephant & Castle at Amwell, near St Albans. "What do you do for vegetarians?" she asked. "I take them outside and shoot them," the jocular host replied.

The pub has changed hands. It's now run by Greene King and my wife can visit it without fear of the grapeshot.

Briget Walsh​

I was impressed by the good sense of licensee Bridget Walsh. She runs the Harp in central London, the first ever pub in the capital to be named the Campaign for Real Ale's National Pub of the Year.

As well as offering a splendid range of impeccably-kept cask beers, Mrs Walsh keeps her food simple, with the likes of sausage baguettes. By all means have a full menu if it suits your customers, but if they are busy office workers, feed them fast and send them happily on their way.

The Harp's fare reminded me of the opening to Graham Greene's brilliant spy novel, The Human Factor: "Castle, ever since he had joined the firm as a young recruit more than 30 years ago, had taken his lunch in a public house behind St James's Street, not far from the office.

If he had been asked why he lunched there, he would have referred to the excellent quality of the sausages; he might have preferred a different bitter from Watneys, but the quality of the sausages outweighed that."

Greene helped see off Watneys. It's a pity he didn't live long enough to bring a similar end to the curse of the gastropub.