Hey pesto!
As head chef of the Arkells-owned Hare & Hounds in Chedworth, Gloucestershire, 22-year-old Richard Burkert is anxious to establish his name on the gastro-pub circuit.
The 110-seat pub is run by Shaun Davies, Emma Copley, renowned pub chef Sonya Kidney and her husband Leo Brooke-Little and is rapidly gaining a reputation for its food. But like its sister pubs owned by Kidney - the Marsh Goose at Moreton-in-Marsh and the Churchill Arms, Paxford, both in Gloucestershire - it is her name that is often associated with the outlet's kitchen.
However, the menu, which changes once, sometimes twice, a day, is devised entirely by Burkert. He and Kidney liaise with one another on suppliers and food prices, he explains, "but menu-wise it's all down to me." As in all of Kidney's pubs, nothing is cooked from frozen at the Hare & Hounds. Fish is delivered within hours of being netted in Cornwall, by Port-Fish of Looe, while Burkert's meat and vegetable suppliers are based locally at Shipston-on-Stour and Cirencester.
Swordfish, which is featured here as a steak with garden pea pesto accompanied by mint and caper cream sauce, is regularly on the menu, which is chalked up on a blackboard in the bar. "It's a nice piece of fish and it sells really well. I think our customers think it's quite exotic," explains Burkert, who buys in an 8lb portion of swordfish and cuts it into 10-15 pieces depending on his requirements for the day.
The idea for the pea pesto was Burkert's, although he concedes that he has since seen it on a cookery programme. "Sonya's really into pestos. She often serves one with coriander, but I thought peas would make a change. The peas give it a lot more body than a traditional pesto and it doesn't run as much on the plate, which aids presentation. I tend to make it in bulk [about 15 times the amount featured in the recipe], which can last me anything up to two days," says Burkert, who, having no formal training, learnt to cook under Kidney at the Marsh Goose. Today, much of Kidney's time is spent cooking at the Churchill Arms.
Fish has a strong presence on Burkert's menus, which often feature spiced fish cake with a herb mayonnaise and sweet chilli dressing (£4.75) or cod fillet with piperade and coriander (£8.75) in addition to salmon and the lesser-used grey mullet. Other recent dishes include slices of rare sirloin beef with Parmesan, anchovies, black olives and a horseradish cream dressing (£5.95); main courses of breast of guinea fowl with pear purée and a nutmeg butter sauce (£9.75) and roast best end of lamb with flageolet beans, spicy chorizo sausage and aubergine caviare (£12); and desserts (all £3.95) such as passion fruit jelly with an almond basket of vanilla ice-cream and iced summer terrine with strawberry creme fraiche.
With a brigade of three in total, Burkert serves an average of 40 covers at lunchtime and 50-plus in the evenings. However, the Hare & Hounds has just undergone extensive refurbishment, restoring the 18th-century inn to its former glory - Arkells spent £300,000 on the project - and Burkert is confident that covers will double now it is fully operational. A previously boarded-up cellar and a Victorian fireplace have been opened up; a conservatory has been erected, which gives seating for up to 15 people; and the kitchen is now housed in a former barn with a separate level for Burkert's pastry section, responsibility for which is shared equally among his team.
