The element of supplies
John Rudden, head chef and partner of the White Hart Inn at Lydgate, near Oldham, Greater Manchester, is not just passionate about his cooking: a fire burns in him when he talks about ingredients. "Why do some chefs accept second best? What sort of statement does that make about the way you cook?" he asks.
His attitude could make suppliers cower. It could mean there is a mandatory rejection level keeping suppliers on edge about quality. But Rudden refutes this. "That's silly. You have to have a relationship with a supplier: there has to be give and take. There will be times when it's difficult for them to deliver exactly what you want, but that's part of it if you are going to want something special. I'm not hard on suppliers, I'm loyal to them."
His list of suppliers reads like a who's who of North Country food specialists: fish from Neve's of Fleetwood: "An amazing place - I've taken the whole brigade there to see what it's like"; cheese from Pendrill's in Cheshire: "Peter Papprill has so much knowledge about cheese, he must know every cheese in Britain"; maize-fed chickens from Reg Johnson in Longridge, Lancashire, a poultry farmer who chooses which restaurants he will supply with his hand-reared birds.
In return for Rudden's loyalty, his suppliers go out of their way to get him what he wants. Fairfields in Manchester, for example, tracked down a source of Welsh Black sirloin beef for him, which is now served on the restaurant menu in all manner of ways, from pan-fried fillets to braised chuck.
"Simon Radley at the Chester Grosvenor told me about this beef and how good it was. I told Fairfields what I was after and they searched for it. They eventually tracked it down to a farm on Anglesey where the cattle feed on marshland. It's slower-growing than other cattle and takes longer to mature, but the taste is amazing. There's not a lot of fat on it, but it's marbled with a creamy beef fat. It cooks brilliantly. That's what I mean about being loyal to suppliers - they'll work for you."
Wild berries
As well as the big names of restaurant suppliers, Rudden has a few lesser-known ones. Since late summer he has been getting a weekly supply of berries from the woodland, hedgerows and moorland around this edge of the Pennines from a professional dog walker.
"She just came in one day and asked if I wanted some wild raspberries. All she does all day is walk other people's dogs for them down country lanes and footpaths. She knows where all the autumn fruit is. Wild raspberries are nothing like the punnets you buy from the veg man: they are small, the sizes are mixed, but they have so much flavour. She gets blackcurrants, redcurrants, blackberries, anything she sees while she's out walking. We don't pay, but she gets free meals in the restaurant. It's a brilliant way to get fruit like that. We do summer puddings, ice-creams, sorbets or just serve them as they are."
If you discount a filling of truffled lobster, sausages are inextricably linked with pub food - and even more inextricably linked with the White Hart, since it makes its own, and sausages have a separate section on the brasserie menu.
The sausage fillings are devised by Rudden, who has a trademark chicken and black pudding sausage that is a permanent fixture on the White Hart brasserie menu, as well as unusual fillings such as venison and juniper, and duck, ginger and plum sauce. "I know duck and ginger sounds odd, but it eats really well. We serve it with a rocket salad and apple crisps as a starter at £4.85."
Local customers
Despite the strong food element of the pub, it retains two small rooms that are just for drinking - an important part of the business that generates £250,000 a year. Rudden says that although converting these rooms into food sales might lead to a seasonal increase in revenue (even though it is 30 minutes' drive from Manchester on a good day), they have to remember their moorland location in winter. "Local customers are very important to us. We are part of the community in Lydgate. We're not in the middle of Manchester or the middle of Leeds - we're in the middle of nowhere."
The main part of the front bar area is the 60-seat brasserie, which has a long, traditional bar counter and where the menu features dishes such as a traditional Lancashire starter of black pudding with smoked bacon, a poached egg and port dressing (£4.50) or the more exotic spring roll of wild mushroom, spinach and pine nuts with a chive and butter sauce (£4.75).
The main courses in the brasserie range from comforting staples such as smoked haddock with a poached egg and parsley potatoes (£10.25) to toasted goats' cheese rolled in poppy seeds with wild mushroom tagliatelle and aubergine caviar (£10.50).
At the rear of the main bar area is the more formal white-cloth 50-seat restaurant, where dishes are available such as asparagus and lemon risotto; leek and oyster broth; pan-fried beef fillet with sautéd sweetbreads; Stilton and rocket risotto; and duck breast studded with langoustines and served with wok-fried vegetables and tagliatelle.
Customer petition
Although the restaurant menu changes every two months, the menu in the brasserie changes little. It is not uncommon for a dish to stay on for three months. This is not because of idleness in the kitchen, but as a result of customer power. Rudden explains: "We had a tempura of cod on the brasserie menu for ages. I took it off and there was a petition to get it back on. A woman came in and, when she saw I'd knocked it off, she got a menu and went round the restaurant asking people to sign their names on the back demanding it back."
The White Hart is a multifaceted, successful business - but it wasn't always so. When Rudden and business partner Charles Brierley bought the pub in 1994, it was run-down and a far cry from the place from which Rudden had moved, the Angel at Hetton. Today it has a string of awards for its food, including a Michelin Bib Gourmand and two AA rosettes, and this year it won the Pub of the Year Catey.
