In with the inn crowd

It took the buzz of the Woolpack Inn in Beckington, Somerset, for chef David Woolfall to question why he had worked in the rarefied atmosphere of country house hotels for 11 years.

That was three years ago, when he first visited the Woolpack for a job interview. Now, he appears so much at home there you would think he had been running kitchens in pub-restaurants all his working life. "Actually, we're an inn," he points out. "I think of pubs as somewhere you drink and have a snack."

One holdover from his time on the country house hotel scene, however, has not been eroded over the past three years at the Woolpack: speaking to journalists and inspectors is a guarded affair. "We're not going for accolades here," he explains, adding that he thought he had left the world of guides and restaurant inspections behind him. "One of the reasons I came here was to get away from the guides."

But such is the standard of the food being served under his direction, the guides have been keeping the Woolpack in the frame. In Woolfall's first year at the inn, the AA upgraded it from one to two rosettes. "They said I would easily get three rosettes because of my experience in country house hotels - if we got rid of the bar. But that's not what we want to do. The bar attracts people here in the first place - it would not make business sense to get rid of it."

The Woolpack is a former 16th century coaching inn with plenty of history and legendary tales. One of the most well-told stories is that condemned villains were allowed a final drink at the inn en route to the gallows. One unfortunate highwayman declined this final right and was hanged the sooner - minutes later, a messenger arrived with a Royal pardon.

Visiting the Woolpack these days has less serious connotations. Woolfall strives to create for diners an atmosphere which is as relaxed as possible. The 14-bedroom inn is split into several restaurants offering different menus; however, customers are free to order whatever takes their fancy, wherever they are sitting. "If people want to eat in the restaurant but one guest wants a snack, then that's fine," says Woolfall. "Why should they be forced to eat a full meal?"

Woolfall and proprietors Martin Tarr and Paul Toogood have modelled the inn - which consists of a 40-seat main bar, an 18-seat no-smoking restaurant, a 50-seat garden room and a 30-seat courtyard - on places which have inspired them. Although the Woolpack is currently their only property, under the banner of West Country Village Inns they are planning to buy six more in the coming years. Woolfall will then become a director, with responsibility for setting up the kitchens and recruiting staff.

With a brigade of five, although usually only three staff work each service, Woolfall offers a monthly changing à la carte menu, a budget lunch menu (£5.95 per dish), and an evening "extras" menu. Despite there being at least six dishes on each, the budget and extras menus change daily.

Typical dishes from the budget menu include chicken and spinach terrine with pimento coulis, smoked trout pâté with toast, baked ham mornay with fresh vegetables, and smoked wild boar sausages with real ale chutney and chips.

The extras menu, which has a fish bias since the à la carte tends to carry meat dishes, offers main courses such as flaked smoked trout and asparagus with horseradish mayonnaise (£4.50), fillets of red mullet in filo pastry with scallop mousse and Pernod butter (£14.50), and roast hake with a mustard and herb crust and tomato vinaigrette (£12.99). Sandwiches, which are charged from £3.95, do not appear on any of the menus but are made to order.

The à la carte menu is considerably larger, offering about eight starters, eight mains and five desserts. Descriptions are brief and to the point.

Best end of Somerset lamb (£14.95) features on the à la carte in various guises. For Chef, the recipe includes a port orange and red berry sauce, but Woolfall also serves it with ratatouille and rosemary gravy or with a tomato, caper, olive and rosemary sauce with aubergine moussaka. Although his jus are prepared in advance, Woolfall prefers to cook as much as possible to order - this particular dish can be turned round in about a quarter of an hour.

Sweet honey and walnut tart with clotted cream (£4.95), in Woolfall's opinion, is even simpler to prepare. He bakes the pastry blind and, once it is cool, pours a mixture of butter, soft brown sugar, eggs, honey and vanilla essence over the pastry and a bed of walnuts. Each tart serves eight - Woolfall prefers not to make individual desserts except in the case of summer pudding.

Other desserts (all charged at £4.95) usually include something with chocolate, such as chocolate and rum mousse or dark chocolate and hazelnut truffle cake, a brûlée, ice-creams, sorbets and traditional sweets such as rhubarb crumble, profiteroles or lemon meringue pie.

For Woolfall, the biggest transition from his time in country house hotels has been getting used to not knowing how many people are going to walk through the door. "Back then," he says, "if 20 had booked I knew I would do 25 at most. At the Woolpack, I can have 30 booked and do 80. That includes tables of 10 on chance turn-ups. I have had to adapt every recipe to cater for this."

Back of house, Woolfall operates a split-shift system, with each member of staff working five days a week. He claims not to keep staff on all afternoon just because the Woolpack has run out of one particular dish. "We simply take the dish off the menu and make it that evening to put on the following day. Food is important, but we're not going to bust a gut to get one dish back on the menu," says Woolfall. "If people can't accept that there is one dish missing from the menu, that's sad."

At one time, Woolfall relished the thought of running his own place. Now, aged 37 and married with two young children, he is glad to have the support of owners Tarr and Toogood. "When I wake up on Sunday mornings after a busy Saturday night service," he says, "I feel like I've been beaten up. I do admire the likes of Shaun Hill taking on a chef-proprietor's role, but I realise now that it is not for me."

Next week: In the fourth part of Chef's Take Five series, Amanda Afiya visits a rising young star from Avon