The Eagle

 

The Eagle

 

VO
Clarkenweld has long been associated with radicals. Lennon lived here, Walt Tyler made camp here, but more recently it has seen the start of a culinary revolution. Fifteen years ago, The Eagle became the first ever gastropub, and in doing so created a style that has changed the British Pub forever.

 

IV Mike Belben

Fifteen years ago, the only place that you could get a drink on its own was a pub. If you wanted a meal you had to go to a restaurant. So it was quite obvious that if you took food to a pub, you could serve people that just wanted food, you could serve people that just wanted a drink. And so you had this fantastic space where all comers could be accommodated, and you wouldn’t have to turn anyone away. So it was an obvious thing waiting to happen.

IV
The sort of food that myself and my partner wanted to serve in the pub was food that was being served in really quite expensive restaurants, food that we couldn’t afford, and we thought, if we served it in a fairly simple environment and cut corners on the trimmings, like the napkins and the table cloths and the expensive crockery and cutlery, we thought if we saved money on that we could serve this lovely food for much much less. I think a lot of the new operators make a huge mistake which is to take a pub space and turf out the drinkers. Start introducing things like Napery and posh glasses. These are things that restaurants do. In my opinion, gastropubs should be open for all, and be rough and ready. But at the same time, maintaining a very very high standard in the kitchen.

 

IV
We had no idea that quite so many, that it would become the movement that it became. I never believed that it would be quite as universally popular. But I was convinced that when two young men who’d worked a long time in restaurants brought those restaurant standards and put them into a scrappy pub, I was convinced that that would be a big success.