Good Food Guide bans use of gastropub term

Guide editor Elizabeth Carter said the much revered term has become “diluted” thanks to large chain pub companies adopting it and supermarket meal deals, such as the Marks & Spencer “gastropub” ready meals.

She said it “confused” people, causing half the country to think that gastropubs serve very expensive restaurant-style food and require table bookings.

“Our feeling is that ‘gastropub’ has become a restricted word and a bit of a cliché,” she told the Publican’s Morning Advertiser​.

“Although a gastro movement was needed to give pubs a wake up call in the 90s, it does not sum what a modern pub is doing now.

“We have had a pendulum swing effect where in the 90s pub food was dire, especially when smoking was allowed. They were heavily drink oriented with rubbish food.

"Pubs are much nicer places to drink now, but it has gone too far the other way with pubs turning into restaurants.”

Carter believes that pubs must return to a focus on drinkers and good quality homemade bar snacks, such as Scotch eggs, as well as maintaining a quality food offer, in order to survive.

The Guide’s Pub of the Year 2012, the Duke of Cumberland in Henley, West Sussex, was chosen due to its focus on both drinkers, diners and smokers.

“A good pub nowadays has to have a nice balanced operation with drinkers, diners and if you have the space, put some rooms in,” added Carter.

“We have been saddled with the word ‘gastropub’ and people don’t like it, but no one has been able to come up with another all-encompassing word.

“We need to go back to calling a pub a pub.”