It is my belief that the best quality ingredients have always been available in the North of England. I use these to create a pub where seasonal, locally produced fresh food and drink are key. The people of the North East are passionate about their region, and the area is not yet nationally renowned for food. My aim is to create immaculate dishes, presented simply with high quality yet relaxed service. To showcase the great producers in the region. It is my belief that we should be as proud of our food (heritage and present) as our football team.

There are almost no other pubs like this in the North east for tradition and character. We have a truly regional style of food rare amongst even North East restaurants. Rhian Cradock.

What makes us Unique

Fine British food, in a traditional setting, at a reasonable price.

We are a free house with no brewery control giving us the flexibility to serve the beer and soft drinks that we choose enabling us to have the variety and speciality products we love. we are also able to change these as frequently.

Recent food scares are leading the consumer to care about the welfare of livestock and the condition in which they are reared. By using local produce, we take into consideration animal welfare whilst also improving the flavour and taste of the food dramatically.

We invest in the region by using locally sourced suppliers. It is important to us where food comes from and that it is sustainable, with a reduction in “food miles”.

“When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England” – Hillaire Belloc


Trust in provenance.

We are explicitly open and publicise the provenance, food miles and animal husbandry of our menus. Our menu lists the source of key ingredients and goes much further than merely stating that the chop is from a rare breed such as middle white. We list the farm where the animal was raised. Traceability is very important to us and we value to the work that goes into rearing and creating the food on our plates.


My food is most definitely based upon classical and regional French cooking. I find inspriation in the books of Elizabeth David, Jane Grigson, Mark Hix and Fergus Henderson (St. John London).

I also love mediterranean flavours from Spain, Italy and also North Africa. It is this largely European combination of influences which gives us the pretty meaningless 'Modern British' label in most restaurant guide books.

You will find old fashioned stews, pies and suet puddings alongside delicious offal preparations and lighter, simply grilled fish and meat alternatives on the menu. I favour simply plated but immaculately prepared desserts too.

We are very proud of our Northumbrian cheese board at The Feathers Inn and when it is brought out it always impresses.'

Rhian Cradock

An Ethical Business

At The Feathers Inn, we believe passionately that the success of our business lies in the importance of high ethical standards to be practised at all levels.

Food tastes better in season.

Local produce is better to eat and better for the environment.

Our buying policy

We source all our food ethically and responsibly -Our menu changes on a twice daily basis which reflects our small scale artisan producers, suppliers and foragers. We speak to our farmers daily and build our menu around what is best and what is available at that time.

We source the majority of our food and drink from our region. Almost all our produce with is grown, reared, foraged and caught in the North East

The provenance and animal husbandry of our suppliers is very important to us and we regularly visit our famers and get to understand their business.

We support heritage produce and rare breed animals.

We are flexible as farming is never straight forward and not an exact science.

Awards

We won Best Pub at the Northern Hospitality awards 2010 for standards which are inspiring to the pub industry for food, drink and service. The Guardian selected us as their Eco friendly pub kitchen in their 2009 guide due to our sourcing policy. We won Local Food pub of the year award 2008, and have been a Garry Rhodes Local food hero 2007 & 2008. We have won two awards from the RSPCA 2010 and in 2009 for our ethical and cruelty free sourcing. Rhian received a personal award "food champion 2010" from the Publican magazine for his contributions to the pub food industry.

Animal welfare

The quality of the product is at the very heart of everything we do. Animal welfare is an essential aspect of ensuring quality. 

Our farmers work together with us to ensure we bring to the customer the finest food possible by using the greenest and animal welfare friendly methods.

We only work with farmers who put the welfare of their animal's first and show care and attention to their needs.

We know how it was slaghtered and how it was butchered.

We hope by using British Rose veal we are helping to raise awareness of this as a compassionate and viable source of meat and prevent the cruelty of shooting at birth male calves.  We support Compassion's Calf life - wanted not wasted campaign.   We hope to work with these farms to increase the awareness of this meat as an ethical product and encourage more people to try and support British Rose veal.

Our fish policy

We have an extremely strict fish buying policy - we never buy endangered species or fish in its breeding season.

The fishermen we work with come from small fishing communities on the North East coasts, and they only use sustainable methods of landing their catch from day boats, using lines, pots, creels or divers

We've been using lesser-known species of non-endangered fish for many years, such as gurnard, Pollack and razor clams. They benefit from plentiful stock levels, and by using these fish this takes pressure off the depleted stocks of endangered fish such as cod and haddock.

Lobster and crabs are all soured from day boats in the North Sea landed at Sunderland and North shields, deliver to the pub the next day. The lobsters are dispatched by cutting them in half down the middle, crab are killed prior to boiling by inserting a steel into their abdominal cavity on their underbelly. 

We follow closely the listings on the marine stewardship council website to ensure we are not using any fish that may be threatened. This for example has led to the removal of British eel from our menus. For full details of what we will and won't purchase, see the Marine Conservation Society's list at www.fishonline.org

All our fish suppliers have guaranteed to adhere to our fish buying policy guidelines.