Roger Narbett tells Richard McComb about cooking for football stars and running an award-winning pub.
The beautiful game’s loss was gastronomy’s gain when Roger Narbett failed to make the grade as a professional footballer.
Despite being a devoted Baggies fan, Roger signed schoolboy forms with Aston Villa and impressed with his energy, if not his clinical finishing.
Although his younger brother Jon went on to play professional football for Shrewsbury Town, Roger, a dynamic midfielder, did not get a chance to shine in front of the Holte End.
“I was a Bryan Robson type of player,” says Roger.
It is a fitting comparison as Robson, the bubble-permed ex-Baggies player and manager, is one of the many England football captains Roger has cooked for during his tenure as official chef to the national team.
Next March, Narbett will mark 21 years in the job and just a few months later he will head to South Africa to feed and water Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard et al as they seek to lift the World Cup.
These are exciting times for Roger. England expects. But so do pub diners.
Roger’s “day job” involves running a couple of pubs in Worcestershire – the Bell & Cross at Holy Cross, near Clent, and The Chequers at Cutnall Green.
They are typically English rural boozers, places for rest, reflection and refreshment.
However, the Bell & Cross has just won promotion to an entirely new level.
This early 19th-century building has just been named as the best pub in Britain by The Good Pub Guide.
Visiting on a Sunday, just days before the award is announced, it is not difficult to see why the judges were so impressed by the food and ambiance created by Roger and his wife Jo. Stepping over the tiled floor, it is a sharp left into the snug bar where there is a sight to delight: an old-fashioned bar with hand pumps serving great beers.
After a pint of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, Jo encourages me to try a glass of locally-brewed Mellow Yellow.
With a host like this, you can tell it is going to be a good lunch. Jo, who is immaculately turned out, is preparing for the arrival of a special high-strength Hobgoblin beer for Halloween.
“I think we’ll serve it with fish and chips and limit people to two pints,” she says with a wry smile.
Her contribution to the success of the business cannot be overstated. Significantly, it is Jo’s name that is above the door as licensee.
The pub, which has also been awarded the title of Worcestershire Dining Pub of the Year, comprises five small rooms, all individually furnished.
We dine in the old Smoke room, which is “easy-on-the-eye” contemporary, with browns and bare tables.
There is push button on the wall, a relic of pre-smoking-ban days when gents used to close the heavy dark door and ring for assistance when their glasses needed refilling.
Hooks hang down from gnarled beams in the front room, recalling its former use as the village butchers.
Lovely, eye-watering pinks prevail in a room that used to function as the ex-landlord’s private lounge.
Tremendous care has been taken with the decor and furnishings.
If Jo ever tires of the pub trade, a career in interior design beckons for the former hairdresser turned hospitality queen.
Roger says: “I am very lucky that I have got a wife that puts in so much effort and enthusiasm and allows me to do what I do [with England]. We have a good relationship.”
The couple met, inevitably, at a pub. Roger was then chef de partie at Le Gavroche in London and was drinking with mates at The Fox at Stourton. Jo was there with a group of her friends. It proved to be the sweethearts’ match of the day.
“It was love at first sight,” says Roger, who is 49, and clearly still smitten.
Jo went on to work with Roger’s father, John, at The Bell at Belbroughton.
The couple later ran the former Sloanes restaurant, in Chad Square, Edgbaston.
Chefs tend to move between kitchens as footballers transfer between clubs and Roger, who was originally from Smethwick, variously worked at The Dorchester, the Lygon Arms in Broadway and the Hyatt in Birmingham before he and Jo acquired the Bell & Cross in 2000.
Roger had been cooking for the England team since 1989 – his first away game was Albania – but he was only required for away fixtures.
The job required sacrifices all round, Roger having to use accrued Bank Holidays and annual leave for his overseas England duties.
He recalls: “When there were a lot of games on we never had much holiday as a family because I was using it up for England.”
When Wembley closed in 2000, the FA decided to appoint Roger to cook for home fixtures as well. Something had to give as employers could not be expected to give him such protracted periods of leave.
Becoming self-employed again, and taking on a pub, was the answer.
“We had looked at many pubs and the Bell & Cross became available. We hadn’t even thought about it.
“We only lived just down the road in Belbroughton and had driven past many times.
“We had a look and it is like when you buy a house – it felt good, it felt comfortable and we thought we could do something here.
“But it was hard work. We moved out of our house and moved above the pub. There were only two beds.
“It was very tough and very emotional.”
The move involved uprooting their two children, Oliver and Simone, moving them from a comfortable home to life above what could then be described as a “functional” boozer.
Roger continued to work as executive head chef at the Hyatt for several months, leaving Jo in charge of the pub.
As Roger says: “The pub was in Jo’s name and she was the boss. A lot of credit goes to Jo.”
It’s not surprising then that her influence pervades the place, from the fresh flowers to the fabric of the building. Good pubs, though, are about more than good looks.
They are about heart and soul and the Bell & Cross has this abundance, too.
Despite being a renowned dining destination, this is still a drinkers’ pub and a focus for community life.
The darts board has gone but the banter remains.
Visit on a Sunday and the place is teeming with couples, friends and families attending for the ritual roast.
The starters we try – of Parma ham, blue cheese and fresh figs, sakura salad; Thai spiced king prawns; and the smoothest of smooth chicken liver parfait – speak of freshness, tang and flavour.
The main courses comprise three roasts, including Scottish beef, old-school pot-roasted leg of Cornish lamb and free-range pork belly with black pudding.
The beef is tagged “Till we run out,” which I love, because it means it is individually prepared, popular – and therefore tasty.
So it proves to be. The beef is good, a medium rare slice of quality meat with a good thyme jus, uninhabited by grease, flavour enhancers or floaty bits.
I have no doubt that the other roasts were equally good because you can tell when a kitchen knows what it is doing.
Desserts are just as they should be – pretty as a picture and overflowing with English tradition.
The warm treacle sponge is effortlessly light (no post-consumption brick in the stomach feeling here) with good Devonshire custard.
The Last of the Summer Fruit Pudding has a glorious scoop of clotted cream ice cream, so good I get whacked by my wife for repeated raids on my little daughter’s plate.
Elsewhere, there is double chocolate brownie, praline ice cream, vanilla sauce; sticky banoffee ice cream sundae; and New York lemon curd cheesecake with honeycomb crisp.
What’s not to like?
* WEB: For more information, go to www.bellandcrossclent.co.uk
