First, Catch your Pig

The big recent move to using local produce in pub food has developed a very enterprising new twist. A small but significant and rapidly growing number of good pubs are now growing more than just small back-yard quantities of salads, vegetables and fruit for their own kitchens, and/or raising their own free-range chickens, ducks, pigs and even cattle and sheep.

Prime examples are the George & Dragon at Clifton (Cumbria), on the Lowther Estate which owns and supplies it; Brown Horse, Winster (Cumbria), with meat, poultry and produce from their own estate; European at Piddletrenthide (Dorset), lamb from the family farm – and like several other pubs it swaps drinks or meals for customers’ produce and catches; Wheatsheaf at Braishfield (Hampshire), their own rare-breed pigs, poultry, fruit and veg; Stagg at Titley (Herefordshire), their own pigs, chickens and vegetables; Mill Race at Walford (Herefordshire), produce from their own farm; Fishermans Retreat in Ramsbottom (Lancashire), their own beef, venison and trout; Cook & Barker Arms at Newton on the Moor (Northumbria), their own farm produce; Half Moon at Cuxham (Oxfordshire), their own pigs and chickens; White Hart, Fyfield (Oxfordshire), their own veg, fruit and herbs; Nut Tree, Murcott (Oxfordshire), their own pigs and veg; Lamb, Satwell (Oxfordshire), their own chickens; Anchor at Nayland (Suffolk), produce from their adjacent farm, traditionally worked by heavy horses; Golden Key at Snape (Suffolk), their own bees, chickens, pigs, sheep and beef; Jolly Farmers at Buckland (Surrey), their own farm shop and Saturday market; Parrot at Forest Green (Surrey), their own farm; Potting Shed at Crudwell (Wiltshire), their own fruit and veg, more from allotments they loan to villagers; Butchers Arms at Eldersfield (Worcestershire), their own cattle; Star at Harome (Yorkshire), splendid kitchen garden.

These are all extreme examples of the great care which good pub chefs now put into getting superb ingredients for their cooking. Hundreds of pubs which don’t have their own farms or kitchen gardens are now bringing the same sharp focus to bear on the quality of their ingredients. This often pays off in raising the standard of their food to a memorable level.