The Golden Heart Inn at Nettleton Bottom, Birdlip, Gloucestershire, has just won the Best Pub Caterer award, sponsored by Caterplan, at the 2001 Booker Prize for Excellence, an annual awards presented by Booker Cash & Carry.
Co-proprietors David Morgan and Catherine Stevens, who have been lessees at the pub for the past 11 years, won £1,000 in cash and a four-day study tour of New York. They were awarded their prize at a gala dinner held at the Park Lane Hilton in London on April 26 - proof, if it is needed, that entering awards can be extremely good for business.
The secret to the Golden Heart Inn's success lies in David and Catherine's flexibility towards customers and suppliers, the use of quality ingredients sourced locally and the fact that the menu changes on a daily basis. It has been known to change hourly!
It also has a lot to do with David and Catherine's desire to offer their customers something different which could mean Kat Pie, an 18th century Pembrokeshire recipe of mutton and currants, fillet of crocodile or even an exotic sounding Kangaroo Korma.
Often it is a case of looking through the available ingredients and coming up with an idea there and then, engaging in what David refers to as "doing a Ready, Steady, Cook on a large scale". A lot depends on what is available daily from the suppliers but the aim is to be both spontaneous and accommodating at the same time.
"Some people travel miles for our liver and bacon only to discover it's not available, but a lot of people come here, look at the blackboard and choose whatever is available," said David. The business thrives on unpredictability. "Last week, for instance, there were 12 Aberdeen Angus sirloins, 11 stuffed fillets of sole and nine tender loins of pork, but that was just one day last week. We don't know what we'll have the following day," he added.
Such unpredictability means that blackboards are the only answer for the Golden Heart Inn and that, for one very obvious reason, printed menus would be a complete disaster. There are five blackboards scattered around the pub and David claims that 90 per cent of main course meals are ordered from the boards.
As you might expect, the majority of the food on offer at the Golden Heart Inn is fresh but David and Catherine have no qualms about buying in scampi, prawns, ice cream and some desserts. They make their own rhubarb crumble and apricot bread and butter pudding but buy in hand-made desserts for three reasons - the need to offer customers variety, the fact that the kitchen is tiny and, lastly, because they are low on kitchen staff.
Head chef Bob Harris is professionally trained and, according to David, provides a speedy, accurate and quality service to the pub. "We are very fortunate," he said. Bob works straight shifts between Wednesday and Friday and on Saturday and Sunday until 3pm.
David likes to be in the kitchen five days a week "helping out wherever possible". Menu planning and purchasing are always David's responsibility.
In the early days the pub was closed at lunchtimes and was known as a drinkers' pub. For the past 11 years, however, David and Catherine have transformed it into a thriving food business which serves 800 meals per week and has a food to drink ratio of 60:40.
In addition to 800 main meals per week, the pub caters for 30-plus bar meals which typically consist of ploughman's lunches and hot soups. Children are catered for in the usual fashion, but while burgers are "all well and good", according to David, he intends to offer healthier options, such as pasta dishes in child-sized portions.
Vegetarian options are also important and once accounted for 22 per cent of all meals served on a Sunday lunchtime session. While David trades on his ability as a farmer to offer his customers prize-winning stock and support local produce and British meats, he is equally keen to meet the demands of vegetarians and often has eight different non-meat items on the menu at any one time.
Being a farmer, David is extremely well connected agriculturally. While the current epidemic of foot and mouth disease has caused plenty of problems for the pub's supply of meat, his farming connections mean he still manages to obtain quality products from an abbatoir in an unaffected area of Gloucestershire.
The Golden Heart Inn is traditional in terms of its interior decor. It is very much of the "low ceilings and exposed beams" variety of pub and consists of five separate "cosy" rooms. Customers can eat anywhere in the building as there is no separate dining area.
There is, however, what David refers to as a "top room" which is often used for private functions - it seats around 20 - and two non-smoking rooms. One of the rooms has its own bar and another has a roaring log fire. In capacity terms, the pub can seat up to 120 people.
The pub's "transient" customer base has a lot to do with the Golden Heart's roadside location. People travelling north from the South Coast often stop off for sustenance but David stresses that while the road is extremely busy, the pub is not strong on "impulse purchasers" because it is set back from the road at the bottom of a hill. He knows for a fact that plenty of people drive past without giving the pub a second thought until one day they decide to pull over and give it a try. Most of the Golden Heart Inn's customers are locals.
David and Catherine do little in the way of marketing to road users because they are more than content with their thriving local trade. While the pub boasts new signage there are no roadside A-boards to attract passing motorists.
Like a lot of publicans, they limit their advertising to in-pub promotions. They believe that newspaper advertising offers poor value for money but that the occasional airing on local radio is money well spent.
David and Catherine have plenty of advice for publicans hoping to achieve success and be recognised by a major national awards like the Booker Prize for Excellence or, indeed, the Pub Food Awards. "There is no point trying to achieve the unattainable," said David. "Stick to what you're good at."
The Golden Heart has to compete with nearby "gastro pubs" offering what David calls "poncy food" but he is adamant that his operation will remain a pub offering a varied and predominantly fresh menu at a rate of 60 meals per hour when demanded.
While happy to be awarded the Best Pub Caterer award, they understand the reasons why they didn't take the Booker's Best Overall Caterer accolade - which went to the Roman Camp Hotel in Callander, Scotland. "We were beaten by a hotel for obvious reasons," said David, referring to the fact that he thought it was difficult for a pub, unlike a hotel, to be all things to all men.
The name of the Golden Heart Inn suggests the availability of accommodation, although the three available rooms are currently occupied by pub staff.
David and Catherine agree there is a big demand for letting rooms but the listed status of the building means it is difficult for them to develop a new accommodation block on the site or extend the pub's existing facilities. "There is the space but we wouldn't get the permission," said David.
Another ongoing problem facing the pub was staff recruitment. David said it was extremely difficult to get experienced staff.
Despite relying heavily upon newsagents' windows to advertise for staff, the Golden Heart Inn offers a comprehensive on-site training programme and currently has four members of staff undergoing NVQ training at local colleges on a day-release basis.
With the Booker award under their belts, David and Catherine intend to promote their success and national recognition as premier league pub caterers to their customers and continue to offer locally sourced, British products wherever possible.
Theme nights and beer festivals lie ahead for the summer with 40 real ales and farmhouse ciders available to all-comers; and then there is the winter which, according to David, is very good for business.