Maddie’s Musings | September ‘26

When Did Dinner Need an Explanation?

I spend a large amount of time thinking about pub menus. Not only what should be on them, but what pub food is actually meant to be. Somewhere along the way, the industry seems to have decided that making food better also meant making it more complicated. Familiar ingredients acquired unfamiliar names, menus became increasingly cryptic, and ordering lunch occasionally began to feel as though it required a short briefing beforehand.

This isn’t an argument against ambition. Quite the opposite. I want the food in our pubs to be thoughtful, seasonal and made by people who genuinely care about their craft. I want our chefs to be creative, to use wonderful ingredients and to put dishes on the menu that you might not make for yourself at home.

But I also want you to read the menu and immediately think, “I’d really like to eat that.” A dish shouldn’t need translating before it can make you hungry.

There is, I think, a mistaken belief that familiar food is somehow less exciting. That a pie is only a pie, roast chicken is playing it safe and a bowl of soup is not sufficiently ambitious.

But simple food and easy food are not the same thing.

Ingredient-led cooking is certainly something we are hearing more about in the industry, but what does it mean?

For us, it is about cooking with the very best produce we can find and allowing those ingredients to do the talking. There may be fewer elements on the plate, but the money saved by simplifying a dish can instead be spent sourcing an exceptional piece of fish, cut of meat or seasonal vegetable, whatever deserves to be at its heart.

We are incredibly lucky in our little pocket of the world to have such an abundance of wonderful fresh produce, as well as direct relationships with many of the growers, farmers and producers behind it. When the ingredients are that good, perhaps the cleverest thing a chef can do is know when to leave them alone.