Peter Borg-Neal: gastro passion

Gastropub entrepreneur Peter Borg-Neal talks to Phil Mellows about cantankerous chefs, pubs that must close and those disgraceful cheats at Marks & Spencer.

It comes as a bit of a shock, like he's dissing Joanna Lumley or something, when Peter Borg-Neal turns on that great British institution Marks & Spencer.

"The M&S Gastropub range? What a load of bulls**t. It's not gastropub food if it's made in a factory. It's lying to the public. It's a disgrace. Why isn't Nick Bish at the ALMR [Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers] taking that on? They're targeting us!"

But this isn't spite. This is Borg-Neal caring about food, a care that's gone into his pubs, and of course, he's right.

You could give M&S the benefit of the doubt and call it homage, but to suggest a ready-meal is as good as the food served up in a genuine gastropub chain such as Oakman Inns? Let's just say the above is a toned-down version.

As far as Oakman Inns goes, the tactic doesn't seem to be working, either. The five-and-a-half pubs will take £6m this year. And next year — the refurbs are not finished yet — turnover is estimated to climb to £10m.

Borg-Neal started building the chain just three years ago. Using the money he made out of "two good exits" — from his share of Taipan Taverns and from a former Pizza Restaurant of the Year — he bought a big house in his home town of Tring, Hertfordshire. It became the Akeman, a spectacular pub of clean lines and solid fittings, a huge long wall of a bar in front of an open kitchen, comfy chairs, a warm welcome — and great food.

Since then he's added the Old Post Office in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, increasing take at the former La Vina restaurant from £6,000 a week to £26,000, and the Red Lion at Water End, Hertfordshire, a former Chef & Brewer, which he's taken from £14,000 a week to £37,000.

This year he's added the Kings Arms in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, which reopens this month, and the Marlborough Hotel in Witney, Oxfordshire, which will get its makeover next year.

The half-pub is Oakman's 50% of British Larder, a curious creation in that the bricks-and-mortar British Larder in Bromeswell, Suffolk, spun out of an eponymous recipe website, the virtual anticipating the real.

British Larder's innovative cuisine reflects Borg-Neal's interest in the culinary cutting-edge, which he aims to adapt for the good of pub food.

"Customer expectations are rising and will keep going up. Provenance, ingredients and quality catering are all of growing importance to people. At one time buffalo mozzarella was only in Italian delis, now it's bog-standard. Smart-casual dining used to mean Berni Inns, now it's Mitchells & Butlers' Premium Country Dining brand and Peach pubs. We want to be the best in that sector."

Signature kit​

Oakman Inns' signature kit is the Josper oven, a kind of enclosed charcoal-fired barbecue, and Borg-Neal has also imported the water bath beloved of luminaries such as Heston Blumenthal.

"It makes meat incredibly tender then, when it's still pink, you flash it under the grill to add caramelisation. It happens in Michelin restaurants. It's not a cheat, it's best practice and it makes great food.

"I'm interested in how we use those Michelin techniques in our pubs. Not everything will transfer, they may be too complex. And we need to do things people want to eat."

Borg-Neal knows his stuff. Indeed, he trained to be a chef, and it's strange to hear that what stopped him was a lack of confidence in his own ability.

"My passion is food, but I doubted whether I could be better than the chefs I worked with. I knew, though, I could do better than the management.

"I remember one time working in a kitchen in horrendous conditions and the deputy manager came in and asked for a lemon soufflé for his boss — in three minutes! I just said 'do it yourself' and gave him my hat.

"Every manager should spend time working in a kitchen. They need to understand what it's like in there. If you know about the flow of work in a kitchen you know you can't walk in and tell them to stop. It's like knocking down a row of Dominoes.

"Chefs are cantankerous, but that's because it's a tough job. It's no wonder there's a high turnover. Too many undervalue them. They don't know how to manage them.

"We do pay them more at Oakman Inns, but making them feel valued and included in major decisions is equally important."

Borg-Neal not only wants fine-dining techniques for his pubs, he wants top people, too. And he gets them. The executive chef at the Kings Arms is Maria Elia, a TV regular he describes as a "genius".

"Our food is made from high-quality ingredients, it's fresh and challenging, and chefs respect that. And we offer them a better career than the Michelin star-chasing restaurants. They get more money, better working conditions and a chance to be a head chef earlier. They know we're constantly evolving the menu upmarket and the specials boards are all theirs to experiment with."

Drag on the industry​

It all seems a far cry from a mainstream pub industry that's struggling to make ends meet, but Borg-Neal has been a pub man all his working life, starting out as a 16-year-old cellar boy and doing most jobs in a variety of companies before striking out on his own.

But while he has sympathy with licensees, and is in favour of regulating pubcos in which "the people at the top have made their fortunes off people who have lost their savings", he takes an unsentimental view of the pubs themselves.

"A lot of pubs need to close, they're a drag on the industry so let's get them closed and gone and refurbish them. There is some fantastic stock out there that needs good operators who can give people what they want. I'd like Punch and Enterprise to come to me and offer me deals.

"A great industry is changing. Let's celebrate the process and stop whining on."

Government could help things along by improving financial help, he maintains, and cites the Enterprise Investment Scheme as an example — because he finds the rules baffling.

"To qualify, you have to employ fewer than 50 people, and that hits our trade because we're so labour-intensive. It's about one-and-a-half pubs for me. And they want to get people off the dole queues! It's bizarre." It won't stop Oakman Inns growing and creating jobs, though. Borg-Neal hopes to open two or three more pubs in 2011 in what he calls a "get-rich-slowly strategy".

"We have to make sure we get really good sites, and that we're not over-leveraged. We didn't have to borrow any money until this year. Some businesses are so highly leveraged it only takes a small thing and it'll come down like a house of cards. I was too stupid to understand how these things worked when I started out.

"Now NatWest has loaned us £2.2m — I'd like to think that's a compliment coming from them.

And we've a strong cashflow. The average take at each of our pubs is £31,000 a week."

With what seems like a disproportionate 14 staff at Oakman head office, he has the human resources too. "Others grow before they have the people and the wheels come off. We're ready for expansion."

My kind of pub​

"I'm a CAMRA member and the pubs I drink in are proper pubs — it's just that we've got too many of them. My local is the Castle Inn here in Tring. It's a tiny little pub, but I can get my rugby mates to go in there. They won't come into mine."

Key dates​

• 1977 — Peter Borg-Neal starts his first job as cellar boy at a Reading pub

• 1982 — After a course in hospitality management he gains experience in various pubs

• 1985 — Joins Allied Domecq Retailing as assistant manager

• 1987 — Manages first pub and goes on to become area manager, then a director, at Allied's south-east pub operating company, Taylor Walker

• 1995 — Starts own business, Green Belt Inns. After merging with Tony Carson's Taipan Taverns he becomes operations director and works as a consultant to other pubcos

• 1997 — Joins Mill House Inns as marketing and f