The pub food entrepreneurs behind the Salt & Pepper Pub Company have taken on their second pub.
Chris Spencer and Andrew Parton are building on 15 years of pub and restaurant experience to their new venture, the Wollaston Inn, at Crick, Northamptonshire.
Like the first Salt & Pepper pub, the Nags Head in Wollaston, the pub is leased from Union Pub Company (UPC). Chris and Andrew have also just collected their second consecutive UPC "Food Pub of the Year" award.
The 350-year-old Wollaston, formerly known as the Wheatsheaf, was closed for two months for a total refurb. It now offers private dining rooms, an outside dining area and an upstairs function room that in the pub's previous incarnation hosted gigs by U2, Rod Stewart and DJ John Peel.
The new venture reunites the original Nags Head opening chef team. Edmund Adetola has returned from 18 months in London at Gary Rhodes' Michelin-starred Rhodes 24 to head up the kitchen at the Wollaston and work with Chris to create menus along the same lines as the Nag's Head.
The food is fresh, seasonal and British, with the menu changing regularly. The overall aim is to combine the informal dining atmosphere of a pub with the outstanding food and service seen in top restaurants.