Reaching for the stars

Yes, I know Ramsay et al. keep going on about using locally-produced ingredients. Yes, I realise that tire-making food critics make a big deal out of that as well. Yes I would like to support our local farmers especially since a couple of them are good friends. Yes, I know I'd win favour with the greenie weenies for only using products produced within a radius of 15km.

It's a sports bar, people. Not a fine French restaurant, not a fusion-cooking glass palace, not a molecular-cooking Fat Duck. A sports bar. That's the only thing I can see using this place for and the only thing I can afford to make it, mainly because it's already one (albeit one which is failing in a particularly drastic and stunning manner).

People who know me know I'd love to grab a star. Those who have had my food know I have a shot at one. I have a full plan for a "fine" restaurant and have been looking for the space for a while now. But here's an opportunity to get my feet wet with ownership in a place which simply can't bankrupt me nearly as quickly as the fine restaurant could. And what's more suitable to a sports bar than simple, honest pub grub?

None of the following will be prepared in the kitchen^*: roux, reductions, zests, infusions, emulsions, composite sauces, chiffonades, concasses, nor any other word we had to steal from the French because British and German cooking couldn't be bothered to get past "roast meat and veg" a thousand years ago.

That's not to say there won't be any cooking. Far from it, there will be a full-time cook and I intend to keep him busy. Unfortunately that very busy person will be me at first and I've got a full-time office job from which I can only take a few months' leave of absence, after which the place needs to be able to run without me. The sauce for the spag bol (should the dish make the final cut) will not come out of a jar, even if the portion cost is only a quarter of what it is to make the stuff fresh. Hot pot, pie fillings, home-made chocolate and cheesecakes, hell -- maybe even some bread.

There are a few reasons for this, not the least of which is "quality". Tinned spag sauce sucks, even if you "doctor" it. If I take this bar I have a hellaciously bad reputation to undo and a plan to ensure people will once again eat in this place. Part of that includes offering real food.

Karl: when people are only ordering bottled beer and telling you they don't need a glass, perhaps you should entertain the notion that something may be amiss with regards to your sanitation and the general perception thereof. As for actually eating something from that kitchen... yeah, I just don't need to go there, do I?

But there's another catch. While I've driven more than two million kilometers in my life in more than a dozen countries, my license is no good in Germany anymore and I don't have the time to suffer through their excessive, required (and expensive) driver training courses... which means I need everything possible delivered. My storage is also limited; the fewer items I have on-hand the better, and that means raw, basic ingredients and no cases of cheap-ass spaghetti sauce. Cans of two types of tomatoes and one really good tomato sauce from Italy are all I need for tomato soup, chili, spaghetti sauces, BBQ sauce and more.

So no, if I take this place it's unlikely that my mug will appear in any foodie magazine. But with fresh, honest, good basic food prepared in a clean kitchen by a proper cook and not a bartender running back to nuke everything (and with a fair pricing structure) I can easily feed 30-100 people each night. Whether I can get 30-100 people in each night is the big question because the place can't survive without that.

^*Many of these might be made if I have a private party, but none are necessary for a menu full of burgers, pies and finger food.