Michelin-awarded chef Tom Kerridge is set to host a documentary series on BBC2 shining a light on the UK’s struggling pub industry.
Kerridge, who owns three pubs in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, including two-Michelin-starred gastropub Hand and Flowers, announced his plans to star in the series in an Instagram post last week.
The show, run by Bone Soup Productions, is currently looking for people, and their much-loved pubs, to feature.
The post called for landlords who “need help with a struggling pub or are trying to save one on the brink of closure.”
Kerridge opened The Hand and Flowers in Marlow in partnership with Greene King in 2005. In 2011, it became the first pub to receive two stars, which it retains to this day. In 2014, Kerridge opened The Coach, which received a Michelin star in 2017. He also owns The Butcher’s Tap, another pub in Marlow. He opened his first London site in February last year.
Speaking at the Estrella Damm Gastronomy Congress in 2014, Kerridge warned that pubs that fail to adapt to current drinking habits, they risk closure.
“The pub industry is like the House of Lords – old and stuck in its ways. It needs to look at itself and change. British pubs are closing at an alarming rate so they need to adapt their offering and become more food focused.”
“People are changing their drinking habits – they drink less during the day and on week nights so pubs need to change their outlook by doing things like catching the coffee crowd in the morning.”
