Celebrity chefs flying the flag for pub food

September 13, 2006: Pub grub is heading for the heights as some of the country's celebrity chefs move behind the bar, food writer Susan Nowak reports in the Good Beer Guide 2007, published by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).

Antony Worrall Thompson, Jean-Christophe Novelli, Heston Blumenthal, Phil Vickery and Roxy Beaujolais will soon be joined by Gordon Ramsay, who plans to run a chain of pubs that focus on good food.

Jean-Christophe Novelli left the swanky Auberge du Lac in Hertfordshire to run the White Horse in nearby Harpenden.

He says in the Good Beer Guide 2007: “I think you are guaranteed to be more relaxed in a pub. I'm doing a lot of things I would not have permitted myself before, but cooking should not be to a formula.”

Two handpumps grace the bar of the White Horse and the cask ales accompany such “peasant dishes” as stuffed pigs' trotters or oxtail braised with liquorice. Novelli's menus are based on his experience in his native France and from cooking in Keith Floyd's former pub in Devon.

Antony Worrall Thompson has a double mission: not only to improve pub food, but also to save village and community pubs. He now runs the Lamb at Satwell in Oxfordshire and is also joint proprietor of the Angel, in Heytesbury, Wiltshire, and the Greyhound, in Rotherfield Peppard.

In the guide he says: “So many pubs are being sold off as private houses and the centres of villages have been ripped out. I have Fuller's London Pride as a house beer but I also like to support local breweries, such as Brakspear, Butler's and Loddon.”

Mr Worrall Thompson loathes the term gastro-pub and has told his chefs to be “less poncy - more bistro”.

Ready, Steady, Cook! star Phil Vickery grew up on Shepherd Neame beers in Kent and says: “It worries me that the void between restaurant food in so-called gastro-pubs and the basic rubbish on offer in many pubs is so vast. What we miss is the simply cooked, tasty, good value for money food that was once the backbone of a great pub.”

He is making his own contribution to improving pub food by holding master classes for pubs chefs and designing beers dishes for Shepherd Neame, such as lamb and mint cobbler with Spitfire.

Australian-born Roxy Beaujolais has been chef to the Royal Shakespeare Company and now runs two London pubs, the Seven Stars in Carey Street and the Bountiful Cow in Eagle Street. She believes real ale is essential in a pub: “I like what a handpump signifies. It's a real, live product. I like to stock Fuller's and Young's beers from London, Adnams from Suffolk and guest beers from such micros as Dark Star in Sussex.”

She offers such dishes as steaks and freshly-ground burgers, lamb steak with barley, Napoli sausages with belly pork, and potted shrimps with sourdough bread. Beer is used in such winter dishes as beef stews and game casserole.

Heston Blumenthal, renowned for his scientific approach to cooking, has taken over the Hind's Head pub close to his famous restaurant, the Fat Duck in Bray. He says he wanted “neither a gastro-pub or some smart restaurant on a pub theme but traditional pub food listed on a blackboard.”

Typical dishes include pea and ham soup, and Lancashire hotpot, washed down with a choice of three real ales: Greene King IPA, a beer from the Rebellion Brewery in Marlow and a guest beer.

And now, with Gordon Ramsay about to burst on the pub scene, pub grub may never be the same again.

l The Good Beer Guide 2007 is available from CAMRA priced £14.99. Order by calling 01727 867201 or order online at www.camra.org.uk