Moving experience

Moving from Suffolk to Shropshire gave Chris Bradley the opportunity to rethink the way he cooked. After 16 years as chef-proprietor at Mr Underhill's in Stonham, he decided he wanted to produce simpler and more rustic food.

"I was keen to cook dishes such as confit of duck and slow-cooked shoulder of lamb, and if we achieved a Bib Gourmand in Michelin then that would be very nice, but it was as much as we were aiming for," says Bradley. "We certainly weren't looking for a star."

So, in 1997, with his wife Judy, he moved Mr Underhill's to a larger property with six bedrooms on the banks of the River Teme in Ludlow. He had won a Michelin star in Suffolk three years earlier.

The customers were not so certain about Bradley's change of direction. They were confused - because the 24-seat restaurant swiftly attracted national publicity and plaudits galore (a Michelin star and 8/10 in the Good Food Guide within a year of opening), they wanted something more delicate, more sophisticated.

"Ratings can have the downside of building up people's expectations," says Bradley. "Although there was nothing wrong with the quality of the food, it wasn't what people expected from a Michelin-starred establishment. Interestingly enough, though, Michelin understood very well what we were doing and gave us a Bib Gourmand - in recognition of the simpler food and value for money we were offering - as well as the star. I was almost more delighted to get the Bib Gourmand than the star."

Although Bradley is no longer serving the truly rustic food he so loves, he is cooking food that is less garnished and with a simpler presentation than he did in Suffolk. The prices are now also cheaper - £30 for three courses and coffee, as opposed to the £32.50 that he was charging five years ago.

What hasn't changed, though, is the format of the menu. The Bradleys' restaurant continues to be one of the very few Michelin-starred establishments to offer a set menu with no choice for starters and main courses and a small choice (six to seven dishes) for desserts, plus cheese.

However, customers have the opportunity to decline the planned menu when Judy rings them all in advance of their booking to explain what is proposed. While this involves a considerable amount of work, it has the advantage of ensuring that the Bradleys never have to endure no-shows. As Judy says: "People don't realise that, when you are running a restaurant with around 20 covers and two customers don't turn up, then your profit has gone for the night."

The phone calls, primarily, are to check whether customers are vegetarians or have any other dietary preferences, or whether or not they like a particular dish. "I know what it's like to face a dish which you don't like the sound of," says Bradley. "There are just two things I don't like - scallops and oysters - and I was once served a tartare of scallops with creamed oysters at Pierre Gagnaire's restaurant in Paris. It was difficult to cope with."

Menus are usually planned about 48 hours in advance, but the availability at the last moment of a beautiful fresh piece of brill, or some excellent new-season asparagus, will result in a change of menu - despite the consequent extra phone calls to customers.

The main course is almost invariably meat. "It's what customers want," Bradley says, "although we managed to serve wild salmon as a main course last summer as it was so good." He certainly has no problem finding good-quality meat. There are six independent butchers in Ludlow - an amazing figure for a town of just 9,000 inhabitants - and all supply meat from local farms.

On a Saturday evening, he tends to play safe and put either beef or chicken on the menu. "It's a comfort night when people come to us just because we're a restaurant or because we're by the river, not because of our food," says Bradley. "For some reason, the foodies eat with us earlier in the week."

So, the main course for Saturday dinner may be fillet of Marches beef with tarragon and mushrooms, scented with white truffle, or free-range Springfield farm chicken with balsamic vinegar, sage and dry-cure bacon. Earlier in the week, customers could be served local saddle of venison with sauce poivrade and a garlic cream, or breast of barbary duck with cinnamon and cumin and a quince cream.

Bradley rarely puts pork on the menu as he finds that it is an indigestible meat for dinner. Offal, too, hardly ever appears as not enough customers would be prepared to eat it. "In Suffolk, I once served a veal dish, garnished with sweetbreads," he says. "Of the 24 dishes that went out into the restaurant, 23 came back with the sweetbreads untouched. And the customer who did eat them said he didn't know what they were and hadn't liked them much either."

Fish starter

Fish, delivered regularly throughout the week from Cornwall, is served as the starter. Lemon sole is always popular, maybe served steamed on a bed of leeks with a Champagne and chive beurre blanc sauce, while smoked salmon could be served warm with ginger and coriander noodles. Recently, Bradley has served brill, pan-fried until the skin is crisp, with chargrilled Mediterranean vegetables and an intensely flavoured vinaigrette made by blitzing handfuls of basil with olive oil.

Bradley, who had never cooked professionally until opening Mr Underhill's in Stonham in 1981, never writes recipes down. "People ask me if they can have a certain dish again," he says, "but I often can't remember how I did it." One dish, though, that does periodically appear is a warm salad of smoked haddock served on a bed of spinach with a beurre blanc spiked with chives and diced tomato flesh. "It's very simple, but very popular," he says. "I've done many variations, but have yet to better the original."

Desserts are the one area of the menu where customers have a choice - usually of around six or seven. It is also the part of the menu that is most static, with the mainstays being traditional dishes that have been given a twist. So bread-and-butter pudding, made with Italian panettone, is offered alongside creamy rice pudding served with a rhubarb compote. Bradley enriches the rice pudding by making it with a mixture of milk and cream and by adding an egg. "It is almost crème brûlée-like in flavour and texture," he says. More modern flavours appear in the form of pears poached with lemon grass and vanilla, served with pistachio ice-cream.

Moving to Ludlow has not only given the Bradleys the extra business, in the form of the bedrooms, but it has also ensured that they now have a more consistent operation. "In Suffolk, we constantly had peaks and troughs," says Bradley. "One night, we might do 20, and the next four and the next six. Here, we are enjoying a steady flow throughout the year."

A blip came at the end of last year, however, when the River Teme burst its banks and flooded the restaurant, resulting in its closure for 11 weeks. The foot-and-mouth crisis, too, has had an impact on bookings.

But with their success in Ludlow - with the draw of the town's two other Michelin-starred establishments, the Merchant House and Hibiscus (Caterer, 15 March, page 28), and its various historical and cultural offerings - the Bradleys know that their move from Suffolk was a sound one.

Mr Underhill's at Dinham Weir, Dinham, Ludlow, Shropshire SY8 1EH. Tel: 01584 874431. Web site: www.mr-underhills.co.uk