MAGAZINE

Meat in the room

Last month, hundreds of elite on-trade operators made their way to 30 Euston Square in London to celebrate their success at the 2022 National Pub & Bar Awards. 

Thankfully, not even a well-executed and well-documented rail strike could deter these hospitality whizzes from heading to the capital to collect their certificates for being the best in their counties and to see if they would return home with a Regional Winner award, or even the National Pub & Bar of the Year title. Turn to page 20 to read about who won what. 

Yes, the theatre at the central London venue was as packed out as this issue of the magazine, which brings you a whole host of topics to think about as we move into the peak of… (*looks out of window*) summer? At the awards, I used my opening address to take the audience on a journey of how one pub judging visit went disastrously wrong – mainly hinging on dishes being served up containing ingredients that my companion was allergic to. Fortunately, these anecdotes didn’t end in disaster and we were all able to laugh off the incompetence of that particular operation. However, these matters do need monitoring. 

In this issue, we tackle three key topics that can relate to the importance of intricate knowledge when it comes to serving food and drink to your guests – we’ve got meat-free menus on page 26, food and drink pairing on page 32, and training and team welfare on page 52. Putting together the meat-free piece is what brought back memories of that catastrophic pub visit carried out during the 2021 National Pub & Bar Awards judging journey. Despite sumptuous solutions being so simple when it comes to free-from food, one slip of the mind can lead to serious consequences for both the patron and the pub. 

As always, we put this magazine together in the hope that any operator can take away some useful nuggets (meat-free or otherwise) of information and inspiration, and this issue is no different. I hope you enjoy it. 

Tristan O’Hana - Editor