The Wellington Arms

Eating at this homely yet sophisticated pub (with a menu so local that the eggs, chicken, honey and ham are bred and made on the premises) feels like being in the dining room of a dear friend. Muddy wellington boots welcome. (The Times, May 1st 2010)DescriptionYou get a real thrill walking into Baughurst’s Wellington Arms. It’s tiny – only twelve tables – and the busyness and passion emanating from the kitchen hits you immediately. Owners Simon Page, who does front-of-house, and Jason King, who cooks, are like a couple of kids who’ve found themselves running their own sweet shop. They love what they do and their enthusiasm is infectious. They’re not amateurs, though – far from it. Jason is an Aussie who worked in the best places in Melbourne before meeting Simon in Hong Kong. They decided to relocate here to Britain and ran a catering company before taking on the pub in 2005 on the sort of mad whim that marks some of the best dining pubs and makes them so truly individual. Opening a restaurant didn’t appeal. “We couldn’t have afforded it,” says Jason. “We had enough to buy a short lease from the brewery and that was all. But I didn’t want a restaurant anyway. That smacks of a glass-fronted box on a high street. We wanted a place where you could come in your wellingtons if you felt like it, where we could create the kind of space we wanted and cook the kind of food we liked without any rules. The pub is so small and such a personal kind of place that we do sometimes feel as if we’ve opened up our living room to people,” he says with a grin. The table and chairs – all Edwardian and as carefully sourced as the food – make you feel as if you’re at your granny’s, except that granny never paid this much attention to detail: twinkling tealights of amber glass (lit even during the day in the colder months), linen blinds, perfect pats of butter and neat salt and pepper holders. As you read the blackboard menu you are cocooned in homeliness: jars of honey from the pub’s own bees, homemade jams and chutneys and teapots with cosies knitted by Simon’s mum line the bar, and there are boxes of eggs from their own chickens on the counter, all for sale.The food is a mixture of British fare (despite being from Australia, Jason is a stickler for running an English venture and using local produce) with a few splashes of exotic colour and some original spins on better known dishes. You might find the potted local trout with homemade pickle and toast soldiers, venison and field mushrooms in red wine with rosemary dumplings, free-range pork with crabapple jelly, Moroccan chicken stew and candied quince and almond tart. Rural, homegrown and local is written all over it. This is honest food, beautifully executed.With their own chickens, bees, pigs, fruit trees and vegetables out at the back, Jason and Simon care doing what many people dream about but never pursue. Thank goodness they’re allowing us into their living room.An extract from The Gastropub Cookbook - Another Helping by Diana Henry. Published in Great Britain by Mitchell Beazley in 2008.