Desert Island Pubs – Richard Ferrier
Richard Ferrier, CEO, Heartwood Collection
1. Earliest memory of a pub you can recall?
My earliest memory of a pub is sipping a J2O and eating Scampi Fries on the wall outside the ‘Captain’s Wife’ in Sully near Cardiff where I grew up. We would walk the dog along the seafront looking out over the Severn Estuary and then stop so my dad could have a beer.
2. Most inspirational pub to your career?
It would have to be the King’s Head in Teddington, our first Heartwood Inn, which opened in 2011 just as I was joining the business. Our office has always been opposite so it’s served many purposes for me and the team. It is exceptional on rugby days, packed to the rafters with magnums of Rioja and chateaubriand flowing. It is a real chameleon as it’s a proper vertical drinking pub in the front, a full-blown restaurant in the back, and with a gorgeous garden to the rear (complete with grapevines). It is everything a modern, premium pub should be and I have personally learnt so much from being in there so much. Our general manager, Harriet, is a hero too.
3. Your current local?
I like the Eagle just off Northcote Road in Battersea. It’s a proper ‘spit and sawdust’ pub close to my house. It has a traditional feel with an open fire and a friendly crowd. They make no attempt to do food and are unapologetic about it. They have ‘Belleville Steam Lager’ on tap that is brewed down the road and a taxidermy squirrel on an upright piano. It has probably had ten quid spent on it over the past five years but that makes it a proper local.
4. Your favourite pub?
Can I cheat and say two? The first is The Audley in Mayfair, which I love so much I had a small wedding lunch upstairs there a few months ago. My second is the Double Red Duke in Brampton, Oxfordshire. It has it all: beautiful surroundings, gorgeous rooms, open fires on at breakfast, a great local menu and a team that is cool but unpretentious. Even better is that the team there (Country Creatures) have just opened the Masons Arms opposite, which takes a visit to another level.
5. The pub you’d like to take to the island?
I would have to say The Cricketers overlooking Richmond Green. Beers outside on a bench for hours on end, watching the world go by on a summer’s evening. Unbeatable.
6. The beer (unlimited supply) you’d take to the desert island?
It would have to be Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. I haven’t met an ale drinker that doesn’t love it (and I can’t say a lager as an answer to this question!).
Glynn Davis, editor, Beer Insider
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