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Tom Kerridge at The Hand & Flowers Tom Kerridge It started with a lie. When Tom Kerridge and his wife Beth wanted to take over a pub in Marlow, they told the bank it was for a house extension. The truth was less mortgage-friendly: they used the money to start The Hand & Flowers—to buy the tenancy, max out their credit cards, source second-hand equipment, and build their pub-restaurant dream from scratch. “We opened up with nothing and basically borrowed everything,” Kerridge says now. “It wasn’t even the leasehold of the pub.” That was 2005. Back then, British dining was still emerging from its pub grub hangover. A Michelin star was the preserve of white-tablecloth establishments; pubs were for pints, not pig’s head terrine or brown butter hollandaise. But Kerridge had other ideas. He wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel—he just wanted to cook brilliant, deeply flavoured food, in a place where people felt at home. It was an audacious setup. A chef-led menu rooted in classical French technique, served with zero pretension and all the warmth of a proper local. No investors. No PR. Just a husband, a wife, and a kitchen so small it was forced to run on a four-ring hob. Twenty years later, The Hand & Flowers remains the only pub in the UK to hold two Michelin stars—a status it’s held since 2012—and the cornerstone of a hospitality group that includes multiple restaurants, over 200 staff, and a chef who has become one of the defining voices in modern British food. “It’s weird,” Kerridge reflects. “I don’t miss the early days, but I absolutely love them.” He remembers the graft—the seven-day weeks, the furniture they upholstered by hand, the panic and pride that came with every early service. “You put everything into it. You risk…

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Filed under: News - @ May 12, 2025 8:23 pm