“We want to be in the Top 50 pubs in the UK,” Nick Pullen tells us determinedly. “We are not going after Michelin stars – those days are over – but we want to serve excellent, traditional pub food with some great specials – to make much more in-house. We just want The Chequers to be a really good food pub.”
Nick Pullen of course ran the excellent restaurant Wild Thyme in Chipping Norton from 2008 – 2022, and when it closed Oxfordshire lost one of its best, husband and wife team Nick and Sally as devastated as the rest of us. “It was very sad,” Nick concedes, “but after Covid and the cost of living crisis we just couldn’t continue. So it’s been good to get my teeth into something new and to give the local gastropubs a run for their money. We are certainly getting there.”
‘it’s been good to get my teeth into something new and to give the local gastropubs a run for their money. We are certainly getting there’
News that Nick was back had filtered back to OXINABOX HQ, and he’s already cooking up a storm in the kitchens of The Chequers in Chipping Norton, recently taken on by Kevin Dursley and Joe Glover. The pair have also recently taken on The Mermaid in Burford.
Brought in as an emergency chef over Christmas, Nick says he could immediately see its potential, the historic pub housing a large, light dining room at the back, alongside the bar area.
Think modern pub food with some interesting modern dishes
“It’s a great pub and is always really busy but the food here has been a bit hit and miss over the past few years. So I came on board officially in February and wanted to move quickly. It was too good an opportunity to miss.
Getting a great team in place to cope with the demand, Nick says: “We are not there yet but within the next three months I’d like to think we’ll have a really, good, consistent food offering running seven days a week. Think modern pub food with some interesting modern dishes interspersed.”
“As it’s one of Chippy’s most popular pubs it has a great demographic of different people and ages, so we don’t want to alienate either the locals or the drinkers, we just want to provide a better mix of food and drink, because The Chequers got a huge dining room at the back, providing a great contrast with the wooden bar area, so we have capacity for about 200 diners in a day at maximum capacity.
‘Everyone in Chipping Norton has really rallied round. It’s great to have had so much support’
So how is it going down so far? “Everyone in Chipping Norton has really rallied round. It’s great to have had so much support on this journey.”
Anyone who’s tried Nick’s food before will know what an incredible chef he is. Having taken on more family-friendly jobs as a private and consultant chef in the interim, he says he did miss the cut and thrust of a busy kitchen.
“I absolutely love it and it’s made me realise how much I’ve missed being on the front line, but I’ve got four kids so it has obviously had an impact on my family, but we all sat down and talked about it first before I made the decision, because The Chequers is a bit of a monster – but in a good way.
‘I absolutely love it and it’s made me realise how much I’ve missed being on the front line’
“And while I am a chef of a certain age (55), I couldn’t pass up the opportunity because The Chequers has so much potential and I have a great relationship with the owners. Put it this way, it’s been really rewarding so far.”
The Chequers is at Goddards Lane, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, OX7 5NP https://www.chequerschippingnorton.co.uk
