The “customer knows best” mantra is always important to remember in the hospitality industry, but never more so than in a downturn.
In hard times the first things to go are life’s luxuries and unfortunately for those still trying to run a catering business, eating out is simply no longer a priority for people closely guarding the purse-strings.
To entice people out to spend their hard-earned cash, staff must be accommodating and menus fairly priced.
TV chef and pub owner Marco Pierre White believes the public are a lot more educated about food than they were a few years ago thanks, in part, to the many cookery programmes regularly on television.
“You can’t pull the wool over the public’s eyes,” he says. “When two people are given a bill for £60 or £70 they know whether they have received value and aren’t blinded by illusion.”
Several operators have noticed a shift in diners’ reasons for venturing out, with fewer impromptu meals and more special occasions and advance bookings.
“Everything is an occasion,” says Bruce Elsworth, chef-director at the Angel Inn, Hetton, North Yorkshire. “Casual dining is not where it was and I think this will become more obvious.
"Dining out is going to be a planned event and people are thinking more carefully about when and why they are eating out.”
Diversification continues
Increasingly operators are looking at additional revenue streams beyond their pubs’ core food and drink offer. Many top pubs are offering accommodation, wine shops, own-brand produce and deli shops as an extra source of profit.
Tim Bilton, of Enterprise lease the Butchers Arms in Hepworth, West Yorkshire, makes his own range of produce, including chutneys, piccalilli and jams, which he sells at the pub and at cookery demonstrations.
The Olive Branch, at Clipsham, Rutland, and the Angel at Hetton, North Yorkshire, are among pubs that have diversified into running wine shops for additional revenue.
Deli shops are also an increasing addition to many gastropubs.
Jon and Paula Briscoe, of the Jolly Farmers in Buckland, and the Fox Revived in Norwood Hill, both in Surrey, have run a deli shop at the former site for six years.
“When we took the pub on we looked at something that would be an equal and more interesting reason to come and visit us,”
says Jon.
Shoppers can buy specialist cheeses, sausages, olive oils and ice cream, among other products. Around 100 people will visit the pub purely for the shop each week, while others will wander through after eating in the restaurant. Spend per visit can range from £5 to £70.
Adding accommodation can provide a fantastic boost to the bottom line if the space and location is right. The Angel at Hetton added another four rooms to its existing five last April and chef-director Elsworth says that many Saturdays could be booked out twice.
Occupancy is above 75% for the year and the benefit is three-fold with dinner, bed and breakfast bumping up spend.
The Angel’s Elsworth says: “Having more rooms has attracted more people to us for bigger functions. Customers are booking three to four months ahead — it’s part of the more controlled planned spending that we are seeing in diners.”
Menu trends
“Everybody is stepping up their game,” says Mark Askew, former executive chef at Gordon Ramsay Holdings who has just left to run his own pub company, Cirrus Inns. “Menus are becoming more ambitious, more individual, and chefs are putting more effort in.”
Tasting menus are an emerging trend as they provide the opportunity for chefs to be more adventurous with their dishes, create
interest around the pub and attract fine-diners.
Steve Harris, of Shepherd Neame lease the Sportsman in Seasalter, Kent, has offered a tasting menu since 2005, though he says it has “really taken off” over the past four years.
Costing £65 in comparison to the daily menu’s £35 for three courses, dishes include mussel and bacon chowder and 18-month salt-cured Seasalter ham.
Harris says: “The tasting menus allow us to be experimental and radical with the food without changing menus.”
A tasting menu will be introduced at the Harwood Arms in Fulham, west London, in the next few months.
“We will try lots of different things with the tasting menu with seven or eight courses at £50 to £60 a head,” says a spokesman.
“We want to encourage people to spend more than the current £25 per head — it is a bit low for a Michelin-starred venue. The new menu will provide a lot for the money.”
William Drew, editor of Restaurant magazine, anticipates an increase in tasting menus and more complex in-house cooking processes such as baking and smoking.
“Chefs in top-end pubs have moved on from shouting about local produce,” he says. “People have come to expect that now, so the sourcing knowledge must be there if someone asks about it, but it is no longer necessary to splash it over menus. The next step for 2012 is bringing back complicated artisanal processes.”
The Sportsman’s Harris is leading the way by reviving the lost culinary arts. Processes carried out at his pub include slowly air-drying and curing mackerel over several months, churning butter in-house and extracting salt for seasoning from nearby seawater.
It is used only on the tasting menu due to the extra costs involved with its production.
“There is a danger of people trying to do too much and perfecting nothing,” says Harris. “What I like to see is chefs specialising in one or two things, like making a great pork pie.”
Bar snacks
The Good Food Guide’s consultant editor Elizabeth Carter has also noticed a return of the great bar snack, catering for the peckish drinker.
Jesse Dunford Wood, head chef at Perritt & Perritt’s Mall Tavern in Notting Hill, west London, has brought back pork crackling served with Bramley apple sauce (£3) while the Angel at Hetton does a ‘Yapas’ menu — Yorkshire tapas.
Kevin Love, head chef at the Hinds Head in Bray, Berkshire, notes that cooking methods are going “ultra-modern”, with water baths and sous vide the techniques of the day.
The rise of cask ale continues, helped by the popularity of beer and food-matching evenings. Renaissance Pubs has seen real ale:lager sales shift from 10:90 five years ago to 40:60, while Charlie McVeigh’s Draft House chain continues to build trade. Here’s to pub food in 2012: onwards and upwards.
The term
And now, the elephant on the page — the term ‘gastropub’. No article on gastropubs would be complete with acknowledging the general loathing of the word. Cirrus Inns’ Askew says the term is “dying out”.
It cannot be denied that ‘gastropub’ has been over-used, with pub companies having adopted the term to describe value propositions.
Supermarkets have even grabbed their share, with ‘gastropub’ ready meals advertised on the shelves.
Even operators of true gastropubs still embodying the qualities that one should possess don’t want to be labelled as such.
But until a new word is found, the gastropub will live on.
Ones to watch
The Rookery, Clapham Common (south side), south London
Chef Stephen Gadd has a Michelin background including Hibiscus and Pied à Terre. Owners Mark Angell and Ben Burston opened this moody pub last autumn.
The Albion, Islington, north London
Co-owned by Hawksmoor executive chef Richard Turner, this is one to watch.
The Plough, Long Parish, Hampshire
This pub is set to reopen in March with James Durrant at the helm. He is the former executive chef of the Michelin-starred Maze restaurant in London and spent nine years with Gordon Ramsay Holdings.
The Crooked Well, Camberwell, south London
Just opened in June last year, this pub is already making a name for itself with rave reviews in the restaurant world.
The Thatched House, Hammersmith, west London
Oisin Rogers, who runs the hugely successful Ship in Wandsworth, south-west London, has just taken this on.