In yesterday's Sunday Times (8th April 2012), AA Gill reviewed "Sheesh", the restaurant at Ye Olde Kings Head in Chigwell, Essex, backed by the peer of the realm formerly known as S'r-Alan. "Sheesh occupies or perhaps squats in is a better term, a 16th-century inn". As to the food itself: "The menu is kebabs, shorter than you would get in most Mediterranean or Levantine dining rooms and without the complicated bits". Gill puts his sneer aside for a moment to confess that "there is a great deal to admire about it - it serves a local community with what they want", before turning his ire on the 'Olde England' lobby: "We suffer too much from reconstructed, reverenced and preserved mimsy heritage".
So, Ye Olde Kings Head - whatever its other pretensions - does not proclaim itself to be a gastropub, a term which the editor of The Good Food Guide has argued is now devalued. Centre Parcs, however, have no such coyness. Foresters Inn, situated in Sherwood Forest (home of a certain legendary Robbin' Outlaw) serves pedestrian pub grub at hugely-inflated prices: Continental Breakfast at £4.95 and a 'Full English' at £7.95! Foresters Inn Gastropub Menu
Yet, despite this, the deputy editor of Publican's Morning Advertiser, Mike Berry, still praises the term as "it provides an instantly recognisable phrase to the public about what they should expect when stepping into such a pub". Morning Advertiser, 9th February 2012. Hmm, quite so!
The winner of The Budweiser Budvar Top 50 Gastropub Awards 2012 is a "pub" in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, called The Hand & Flowers. In October 2011 it was awarded its second Michelin star - the first "pub" to do so.
Excuse my sarcasm; I'm sorry, but this is not a pub - whatever it actually is! On the Hand and Flowers website the only reference to "pub" - tucked away in the picture gallery - is covered by three photographs showing rustic tables laid up with sprauncy glasses and cutlery. What stands out on every single page of the website is the button "Restaurant Reservations". ( The Hand and Flowers)
I like real pubs, with a proper mix of customers, like The Dog & Fox, Wimbledon Village, where I began my career 35 years ago: bank managers cheek-by-jowl with dodgy builders, the local baker, alcoholic journalists and bit-part TV actors…...
Oh, and did I mention Oliver Reed? And Jenny Agutter? And John Thaw & Dennis Waterman...
