Over the past three years, A Rule of Tum has spearheaded a culinary renaissance in an area that had hitherto been passed over by the national resurgence of interest in food and drink. With two adjacent restaurants in Hereford and one in Worcester, they were regional runners-up for the Ethical and Cheap Eats prizes last year, and now the company finally has an OFM Awards trophy, for The Bookshop’s splendid Sunday lunches.
“Sunday lunch is one of those meals people look forward to the most, but so often it’s disappointing,” says Dorian Kirk, 29, who founded A Rule of Tum with his brother Edwin, 31, and their friend Jon Stead, whom Edwin met working at the local Pizza Hut.
“Restaurants get away with offering as little as possible: frozen chantenay carrots and peas, veg that’s completely out of season,” adds Dorian. “But it doesn’t take much. Just source good quality meat and organic veg, and make your own gravy. The gravy is the most important thing. If you do it properly it takes all week.”
All three grew up locally, but after catering college Dorian set off to learn the trade, first to Cambridge and then London, where he relaunched Café Below, on Cheapside in the City, and the Colonel Fawcett, in Camden. The latter won the Best Sunday Lunch award in 2014, a year after Dorian had returned to bring a few of his London ways to Hereford.
The influence of the capital’s restaurant trends is clear at The Bookshop. First there’s the name, testament to the building’s previous incarnation as a charity bookshop. Books still line the back wall of the dining room. Then there’s the exposed brickwork along one wall, the result of laborious chipping.
Most importantly, there’s the short, lovingly created menu: steaks from Thursday to Saturday, and roasts on the Sunday. Between those and the Burger Shop next door, their first restaurant which they opened in 2014 [“‘Very Good’ with a gold star and a tick,” said Jay Rayner], few parts of the “cow or two” they get through each week are wasted.
At heart, A Rule of Tum want to remind both locals and visitors of the joy of the local produce. As well as the beef named after the town, celebrated by a huge iron bull in the market square, the surrounding valleys produce enviable vegetables, cheeses and drinks. Their meat comes from Farmer Tom Jones, a Hereford local who supplies Moro, St John, the Clove Club and Black Axe Mangal.
The town’s sleepy scene meant A Rule of Tum could steal a march on the publicity front. “Nobody else was on Facebook, so for about 18 months we had a completely captive audience and hit everyone we wanted [with an ad] for about a tenner,” says Stead. He handles marketing and publicity, while Edwin deals with front of house and Dorian focuses on the food.
“There were always people interested in this kind of food, but thanks to social media they can talk to each other. Now all the other restaurants have cottoned on,” he adds, slightly ruefully. Other hip newcomers have arrived in their wake, too. The Hereford Beer House stocks more than 230 beers. The Beefy Boys, near the market, sell American-style burgers and craft beers. A Rule of Tum has also begun a small Hereford food festival.
Not everything they tried worked. Older diners still wanted a knife and fork to eat burgers. A “pig’s head croquette” served with the pork Sunday roast proved unpalatable, so had to be renamed “pig’s cheek croquette”.
These quibbles aside, the three men seem happy. They enviously eye Bristol’s thriving food scene, and, in time, a fourth site there might be on the cards. But for now they are content to make sure the three existing restaurants are doing what they’re meant to do: show the world what their town is capable of.
“Four years ago nothing was happening in Hereford,” says Dorian. “It’s about 10 years behind London, I reckon. We want to put it on the map. We want people to reconnect with the area, and what it has to offer. The more good restaurants we have here, the more it will become a destination.”
