Walk into The Unruly Pig in Suffolk and you’ll find electric pink walls, pig-themed art and a dish involving liver parfait that locals can recite like a prayer. At The Coach in Marlow, draught beer flows beside a treasure chest of kids’ toys and baked potato “tonnato”. The Star Inn at Harome serves Yorkshire puddings to fifth-generation farmers who park their Massey Fergusons next to Lamborghinis. And at The Hand and Flowers, you can get a duck pie that costs more than a round in your local Wetherspoon – and still feel like you’re in your mate’s front room.
This is the modern gastropub. Thirty years after the term was coined, it’s still the place we go to eat well without enduring the sanctimony of fine dining. But with prices climbing and the lines between pub and restaurant increasingly being blurred, one question lingers over the bar: have we reached peak gastropub?
