What do you think about the term "gastro pub"?
"I think it's a term that is more applicable to urban settings than rural places like this. City gastro pubs seem to be more about putting good-quality food into a pub situation, but they were probably pubs that had poor food offerings in the past.
"A lot of them are no longer actually pubs, but restaurants. I think we're just an honest food house, rather than a gastro pub, but if people want to call us a gastro pub and it means something to them, then I'm quite happy with
that."
Had any culinary disasters in the kitchen?
"When I was quite young, I remember doing a dish at a competition at Westminster College. It was a marinaded leg of lamb that I'd decided to serve with a potato purée. I made the potato purée in a food processor and it got quite gluey. It spread across the plate with the lamb on top and it looked bloody awful. It tasted alright, but it looked terrible and, of course, 50% of eating is with your eyes. Thankfully, I was never named in the article in The Times the following week, but they described the dish as looking like a cowpat."
What are the crimes against food?
"Dressing dishes - whether it's chicken, fish or meat - with a salad on the side of the dish and fruit. I've never been one for garnishing just for the sake of making something look 'pretty' when it's not actually adding anything to the
dish. I have no idea what people think they're doing when they put a fruit salad on the side of a savoury dish."