More than 150 backers pledging over £20,000 enabled Michelin-star chef Ben Queen-Fryer to bring his story of opening The Dog & Gun to life with his debut cookbook. Though self-published, The Dog & Gun Cookbook has the look and feel of something that has come out of a larger publishing house, not least because of the beautiful photography from John Carey but also because of its substance. It is not unknown for chefs to take the self-published route to tell their story and share their philosophy at length, but Queen-Fryer’s book is a cookbook through and through, and one that deserves its successful crowdfund status.
Why Queen-Fryer took it on himself to publish a cookbook is likely to be down to profile. As he points out in his introduction, when he took on the once-shut pub in the village of Skelton in Cumbria in 2017 he didn’t have a widespread reputation in hospitality and hadn’t been a head chef at anywhere of note. In the intervening years he has yet to become a household name, despite The Dog & Gun being awarded a Michelin star in 2022 (which it has retained ever since) and featuring on The Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs list, but his book could be another step forward in this regard.
Where The Dog & Gun Cookbook is most interesting is how, over 70 recipes, it charts the evolution of the pub from its early days to when it was awarded a Bib Gourmand and then to winning a star. It’s a story that has become familiar within hospitality, with chefs taking on pub sites and slowly moving away from pub classics to more refined dishes as they find their feet and nurture their clientele, and Queen-Fryer’s book illustrates beautifully the journey that many chefs will recognise. As Queen-Fryer says, The Dog & Gun is not a drinking pub and was never designed to be a place ‘reliant on a customer having to drink eight pints for us to turn a profit’.
Thus, the book begins with recipes for pub classics that include beef and ale pie with pickled red cabbage; a steak burger with chips and onion rings; venison suet pudding; smoked rabbit pie; and Bakewell tart before progressing into no less hearty but slightly more refined dishes. In 2021 the pub introduced a bread course, comprising focaccia and milk and potato rolls, and dishes began to have a more restaurant feel, such as crispy pork shoulder and celery pickle sat on a celeriac puree (with the plate drizzled with apple cider balsamic); and glazed lamb faggots with celeriac pickle and spiced carrot. In the ‘Now & Onwards’ section dishes are taken up another notch, with quenelles, dots of sauce and microherbs featuring on the plates in dishes such as ox cheek bhuna with puffed wild rice and coriander; mallard breast with cavolo nero and blackberry mustard; and a smoked Jersey Royal terrine with blackcurrant balsamic and watercress.
There is a smattering of additional information hidden among the recipes, including brief introductions to some of the restaurant’s most prized suppliers, but The Dog & Gun is fundamentally a bona fide cookbook packed with recipes everyone will want to eat.
The Dog & Gun Cookbook
Ben Queen-Fryer
Number of pages: 236
Must try dish: Glazed lamb faggots with celeriac pickle and spiced carrot.
Publisher and price: Queen-Fryer Publishing, £35