Modern Rural British Pub Food from one of Lancashire’s most Talented Chefs

Born in Lytham St. Annes and growing up in and around Blackpool and the Fylde, Craig was always around the pub and restaurant industry. His first introduction at the tender age of nine to the hospitality industry was bottling up for his mother and father at the Illawalla night club, Skipool Creek, Thornton. Craig and his sister were given free range to explore the extensive cellars, were able to mess about with dry ice machines and play Eddie Grant records on the expensive DJ’s equipment. His mother used to cook in a old Victorian kitchen sometimes roasting up to six, forty pound turkeys at five in the morning during the Christmas period.

From the Illawalla his parents where given the chance to take a pub called The Highgate in Newton with Scales, near Kirkham. There, he used to experiment during the lunch and evening shifts, honing his garlic mushrooms and chicken a la crème dishes (the height of classy cooking in pubs in those days - early 80’s!). Bye Bye Miss American Pie and I’m Still Standing by Elton John were on the pub’s Juke box, you get the picture. Teaching himself to cook in the pub’s kitchen and with no prospect of a professional football career after an accident with a orange Lada on the Highgate car park, Craig decided to go to catering college in Blackpool.

Craig in the kitchen

He learnt classic French cooking but was always questioning why he wasn’t taught to cook classic English food. After college, Craig was offered a job working for Michael Caine and Marco Pierre White in London. He turned it down, not really wanting to work in London and his parents had moved from the Highgate to take The Bay Horse. Craig decided to help them out setting it up before starting his own career in catering. Sixteen years later he still cooks every day in the kitchen at the Bay Horse.

Most importantly he wants to cook honest food, created to be enjoyed rather than to impress with no unnecessary garnishes or complicated methods to detract from the high quality ingredients. Craig takes a more intelligent approach to cooking with the focus on the provenance and seasonality of the food. Inspired by French bistros and his mother’s cooking, Craig always knew in which direction to take the Bay Horse. It wasn’t easy at the beginning, constantly moving his food forward from the early days of Chilli and chips and Lasagne which, I might add, where all home made from local produce.

For Craig, food has always been about simplicity and enjoyment, both when he eats out and in the style of food he produces at the Bay Horse.

Craig decided to take a chance and slowly moulded the menu into true Lancashire classics, inventing some new Lancashire produce inspired dishes at the same time. Today the Bay Horse has come along way from basic pub food: proven by its inclusion in a book by Diane Henry where it is listed as one of the best rural eating and drinking house’s in the country.

Pork and Leek Sausages with Mash and Onion Gravy