Pubs are in Kirsty Cheetham’s blood. Her grandparents ran one, her dad was a brewer and, at 15, she was pot-washing in her local. Now 42, she has spent her life in professional kitchens, cooking for nine years at Queen o’ t’ owd Thatch.
“I love pubs. I love country pubs. I love community pubs. Good British food is exciting,” says Cheetham. That enthusiasm helps explain why the Queen – an attractive dining pub in the commuter village of South Milford, between Leeds and York – has enjoyed such extraordinary success in the OFM Awards. “When we opened,” remembers Cheetham’s partner and pub manager, Annie French, 51, “Kirsty said: ‘We’re going to perfect our roast and build on that. We want to win the Observer Food Monthly Best Sunday Lunch.’” They first did so in 2018. This is their second victory. The Queen has otherwise been a regional runner-up every year since it opened. You have to “mobilise the troops” to vote, says French, but people only make the effort, “if it’s a really good roast”.
