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Michelin's Gastronomic Accolade for English Pubs

© Stuart Buchanan MacWatt

Travelsleuth Stuart Buchanan MacWatt visits the Welsh Borders and Cotswolds to enjoy the best of English pub grub and sample a meal at the Fox Inn, Michelin's Pub of the Year, 2004.

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

A Shropshire Lad. A.E.Housman

Something has stirred down in the dell at Lesser Tidmarsh, Great Titherington and Little Wallop. The wayside village pubs and hostelries of England are gathering rosettes for their food as well as acclaim for their real ales.

Back in 2001, a village pub won a much coveted star in the prestigious Michelin Guide Gourmet Awards for the first time. It had been only four years since any pub in the Isles of Britain was even considered worthy of inclusion in the Michelin Guide. We gave three cheers therefore when the Stagg Inn at Titley in Herefordshire joined 87 other restaurants in Great Britain and Ireland with a Michelin star for gastronomic excellence.

This is no easily won accolade. Proprietor Steve Reynolds had given up photography to learn his kitchen skills as a trainee chef under Albert Roux at London's famous La Gavroche Restaurant. Photography's loss - gastronomy's gain! As well as offering such rural game dishes as venison with wild mushroom and celeriac, wild duck in a port sauce, hare in Madeira sauce, he had fresh fish brought up from the quay at Newlyn in Cornwall. Spring and summer saw him offering locally farmed Herefordshire lamb and beef. At the pub bar Mr Reynolds draws regional beers such as Hobson's from nearby Cleobury Mortimer and ciders, (Ralph's from Radnorshire and Dunkerton's from Herefordshire).

Where Michelin led, others followed. Jan Moir of Britain's broadsheet Daily Telegraph enthused: "absolutely delicious, beautifully cooked and terrific value..." Jonathan Meades in the Times was equally complimentary: "Steve Reynolds is a splendid cook. Fine ingredients are just the beginning. He knows what to do with them..." The Stagg Inn now has a string of awards including Dining Pub of the Year 2004, for Herefordshire and is included in Harden's Top 100 English Restaurants.

Such gastronomic brio deserves more than fleeting passing acquaintance. You can stay the night in the en-suite bedroom above the pub bar, or in the quieter Old Vicarage nearby. Best of all, stay the weekend and explore a little as my Lady and I did on our visit to the Welsh Marches.