Ladies who lunch
PubChef’s monthly diary on the world of pub food, by Jo Bruce and Lesley Foottit.
Death wish
An Edinburgh chef has put horse and squirrel meat on his menu. The new menu at the Pentland Roadhouse, in Dryden Terrace, launched last week boasting haggis, neeps (swedes) and tatties among the more standard burgers and fish & chips, with a few frogs’ legs in butter served in-between.
Other delicacies include wild boar burgers with honey & thyme, fillet of horse-meat tartar and squirrel stew. Braver diners can also sign a disclaimer before tucking into the ‘wings of death’ — chicken wings served in a secret-recipe, spicy hot sauce.
Chef Bertie Lizeray, who — we should have guessed — completed part of his training in France, at the Ritz Paris, told the Midlothian Advertiser: “The whole idea is to raise a few eyebrows and to introduce a Continental twist to pub food.” Mission accomplished.
Ball skills
When opening a new venue it’s always good to come up with a headline-grabbing name — and one new Clerkenwell restaurant has more than managed that. Meatballs, funnily enough, is going large on the meatball.
The main menu at the eaterie is called ‘Our balls”: customers get three meatballs per portion and further ‘bonus balls’ can be ordered for £1 each.
Diners choose from a selection of accom-paniments to go with their balls, in a section called ‘underneath’ which features buttered mashed potato (£2.95), pearl barley risotto (£2.95), spaghetti with tomato sauce (£3.25) and egg papardelle. The menu also offers a weekly guest meatball and the end of meals waiting staff ask: “How did you find your meat?”
Sausage sales droop
When you think of traditional pub comfort food, pie springs to mind, probably followed by fish & chips and sausage & mash. Time to rethink, then, because 300-site operator Orchid has announced an enormous decline in the third — a decline so big that if they were capable of feelings, saus
ages would definitely be hurt.
From reigning as a top five best-selling dish in 2006 and 2007, the humble sausage & mash has plummeted down the ranks to a — frankly embarrassing — 22nd on the list.
People and commercial manager Simon Dodd reflected that its sorry state was due to “the feeling that when customers are out spending their hard-earned cash they want something a bit more special”.
Another kick while the sausage is down.
Top toasties
No home was complete in the ’80s without a Breville toasted sandwich- maker, with many a tea-time filled with crispy, golden triangles of cheese toasties.
It’s good to see the humble toasted sandwich being given some TLC at Peach pub the Fleece in Witney, Oxfordshire. Among toasties on offer, which all come with chips & salad at £6.50, are ham hock, cheese and tomato toastie, Brie and caramelised onion and tuna melt toastie. The sarnies are available to eat-in or take-away.
Racy chat
Testicles isn’t a word you would expect to hear at a business conference, but attendees at the Publican’s Morning Advertiser’s recent Freehouse Business Club event were enlightened about them by Tim Abbott, the chef/landlord of the
Pigs in Edgefield, Norfolk.
Abbott shared how bartering with customers for produce can be an excellent tool in acquiring great ingredients, increasing trade and pulling the community together.
When asked to identify the strangest product he’d bartered for, he responded: “Pigs’ testicles. We were given them by a local who ran a smallholding.
We brined and simmered them for three to four hours, peeled off the skin and thinly sliced them before pan-frying and serving on our ‘piggy pieces’ — a plate of everything pig-related!” Well, at least they didn’t go to waste.
Bite-size Beckham
Another Freehouse Business Club speaker, Jo Robinson, owner of the Inn at Farnborough, Warwickshire, shared secrets of the pub’s success, including its outside catering business Indulgence.
She confided to attendeees that her high-end catering business had once put on a spread for top designer Matthew Williams’ birthday. British supermodel Kate Moss was rumoured to be there, along with the Beckhams. Her audience was unsurprised to hear the waif-like Victoria “didn’t eat much”.
Super scampi
Chefs at Nigel Haworth’s Ribble Valley Inns have taken pub classic scampi-in-a-basket up a notch. The dish is featured on the menu at the Three Fishes in Mitton, Lan-cashire, as scampi and squid in a basket, featuring Fleetwood- caught battered scampi, crispy East coast squid, lemon & black pepper mayonnaise and real chips cooked in dripping (£15.75).
Bullish approach
No surprise that BII Licensees of the Year 2010 Richard and Loren Pope have put an innovative spin on the traditional beer festival.
They hosted a three-day lager and delicatessen festival in a giant heated marquee in the grounds of the Bull’s Head, in Repton, Derbyshire, featuring 60 world lagers, home-made pâtés and terrines, Continental meats and sal-amis, 60 European cheeses, home-made chutneys, jams and pickles and home-made Italian ice creams.
The Popes have also launched their own-label home-made snack pots for munching with a drink. Featuring Bull’s Head branding, varieties include strawberry milk-shake, a mix of banana coins, strawberries and white chocolate buttons; the Waldorf, apple, jumbo raisins and walnuts; and ‘Little Figgy went to market’, a blend of apple, cranberries and figs.
The ladies are particularly liking the sound of Jaffa Cake, a mix of dark chocolate buttons, candied orange, sultanas and roasted hazelnuts.
Passion for ploughman’s
The Royal Oak, at Wineham, near Henfield, West Sussex, has a big focus on ploughman’s on its Saturday lunch menu. We love the fact that customers can customise their own ploughman’s beyond just cheese, with ham, pork pie or a small mug of soup among the options.
The pub was packed with ploughman’s-eaters, proving that the effectiveness of your food offer can lie in its simplicity.
Divine intervention
The ladies enjoyed lunch at four-strong operator Chilango’s site in Chancery Lane in the City of London, where customer comment really is the holy grail. Embedded in one of the restaurant’s walls is a shrine to the Virgin Mary, with a postbox inviting customers to offer up feedback.
In the Pinky
The ladies came across a treasure of a café in Fowey, Cornwall. Pinky Murphy’s — named by linking the owner’s first pet name with their mother’s maiden name — simply oozes character.
Customers can choose from an eclectic mix of sofas, bean bags and chairs which are surrounded by film, music and surfing posters. Instead of the tables being numbered, they are all named after movie stars such as Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe.
The menu offers plenty of quirky touches including the Breakie Bocker Glory, a healthy mix of fresh fruit, yoghurt and crumbled sweet muesli, and Pinky’s breakfast platter, which offers meats, halloumi and tomatoes with yoghurt, nuts, honey and warm toast.
The ladies were particularly liking how Pinky’s serves its delicious soup — complete with the word ‘soup’ spelt out in cream. Souper idea. www.pinkymurphys.com
Ice-cold in Essex
BII Licensee of the Year 2011 Darran Lingley is full of cool ideas. None come much cooler than the Top Gear-inspired ‘cool wall’, a big magnetic white board, where customers and staff can rate anything they wish about Lingley’s pub — the Five Bells in Colne Engaine, Essex.
The board is divided, à la Top Gear, into four sections: seriously uncool, uncool, cool and sub-zero. The wall predominantly focuses on rating beers, with customers able to move pump-clips around the board. It is also used to rate dishes on the menu, and events.
Lingley says the idea has cost him about £100 but helps to add a real talking-point for staff and customers. We rate it cool.
