Surrey with the French on top
Of the six-strong brigade in the kitchen at the Brickmakers Arms in Windlesham, Surrey, five are French. This is not because publican Gerry Price has a preference for French chefs - indeed, he is full of praise for his former English head chef who was with him for many years - it is because he was forced to look abroad for staff when advertising jobs in the UK brought little response.
"It's an idea I had several years ago," says Price, a former British Airways steward who originally took over the pub in 1987 on a five-year tenancy with Courage, later signing a 20-year lease with Inntrepreneur in 1993. "But I didn't act on it at the time." However, having employed Frenchman Jean-Philipe Quintin as head chef a few weeks earlier in August, Price decided the solution to his recruitment problems may lie on the Continent.
With the help of Quintin's mother, an advertisement for chefs was placed in La Voix du Nord, the local newspaper in his home town near Lille in northern France. The response was staggering. "We had 400 phone calls, whereas a similar ad in England might bring about 10 responses," says Price.
Price believes the response to job ads for chefs in the UK has been steadily decreasing over the past two years and he attributes this to the increase in the number of places serving food. And while he has found a way around the problem, he acknowledges his solution is not trouble-free. "There is a downside," he says. "The four chefs we took on speak very little English, which can be a bit of a problem during a busy service, but we are planning to send them to college and, meanwhile, the sign language is improving." Luckily, both Price and his wife Ann, who runs the pub with him and sees herself as something of a mother figure to the staff, speak French and Quintin's English is fluent, having been working in the UK for six years.
And there is the task of arranging accommodation for the overseas employees. "We have a caravan in the back where they can stay initially," says Price. "Then they lodge with other members of staff. Someone always has a spare bedroom." So Alexandre, Jeremi, Franáoise and Orlando, who all joined the brigade in September, bring the total number of staff to 35, including bar staff and the front of house team, led for the past 10 years by manager Vicki Wolfe. Quintin is pleased with the way things are going in the kitchen, although he still has some settling in to do himself. "It's working out very well," he says. "I just need to get into the rhythm and get Christmas out of the way."
Quintin is in the process of changing the menus served in the pub's 65-seat restaurant and describes the style of food as a mix of English and French with the emphasis on fish. The daily changing restaurant menu is available at lunch and dinner and consists of eight starters, such as shredded duck with caramelised orange jus and parsnip crisps (£6.25), and 10 main courses such as grilled fillet of sea bass on a bed of crushed potatoes with a sun-dried tomato and anchovy sauce (£13.95) or pot roast partridge with autumn vegetables in a thyme jus (£13.95).
There is an additional lunch menu which changes every two to three months and consists of 14 dishes ranging in price from around £5.75 to £8.25, such as chickenlivers and pancetta salad with balsamic dressing (£6.95). A seasonally changing three-course set menu is available for £17.95, or £14.95 before 7pm. It has a selection of five starters, five main courses and a choice from the dessert menu, which includes five sweets priced at £3.95, such as passion fruit bavarois with raspberry coulis in addition to cheese, ice-cream and sorbet.
In addition to the restaurant - which was added on to the pub five years ago along with a kitchen extension and accounts for some of the £150,000 Price has spent on refurbishment over the years - a further 15 seats are available in the bar area. Customers there are welcome to order from the restaurant menus or from a special bar menu consisting of seven meals such as baked field mushrooms with a herb crust (£5.75). Outside is a patio where a few tables are laid up in the summer and where customers also receive full table service.
Being situated in an affluent part of the country where many people eat out frequently, Price has an abundance of regular customers. "They fall into three categories; ladies who lunch before picking up the children from school; the business clientele; and, the grey pound." On average, Price serves 50 covers at lunchtime and a further 50 in the evening, although it can rise to as many as 75. For a lunchtime snack including drinks, the average spend is around £15, rising to £25-£30 for dinner including wine.
The food offering at the Brickmakers Arms, which accounts for 70% of the just-under-£1m-a-year turnover, has changed immensely in the 11 years since Price took it on. "It was pub food to start with, but it has been upgraded along with what people want," he says. All the food is fresh and home-cooked and Price is currently exceeding his gross profit target of 60%. But for Price, the greatest satisfaction was being listed in the Michelin guide for the first time two years ago. "It's where I wanted to be," he says. "I want to offer good food - what I would like to eat - for good value and with good wines."
Wines are a passion of Price's, a fact reflected in the list. "It's rare to find a decent wine list in a pub although they're better than they were," he says. "You get a better spend per head when you have decent wines." In addition to the main list with its 11 white and 15 red wines, Price offers a bin end selection of wines he considers special, such as a Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru 1996 (£39.95). He takes great care in the selection of his house wines, three red and three white - all available by the glass, which he believes need to be good. And since it is what he knows best, most of Price's wines come from France, just like his four newest staff members.
