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Supplier / Birchwood Forestry
Welcome to our staff stories for February
We want to shout about our incredible staff and all they bring to the restaurant, without them we wouldn’t have anything! We will be featuring a few people from our wonderful team each month and talking a little about what they do for A Rule of Tum.
At the start of February 2022, we took a drive out into the Herefordshire countryside to visit our farmer and butcher at Weobely Ash Meats.
They farm at Nash & Presteigne, on an all-grass system. Their sheep are made up of Herdwick, Dartmoor & Ryeland sheep, giving just the right amount of fat cover to allow them to hang Mutton for up to 10 weeks.
They also breed the very rare Welsh pig, a lop-eared large pink pig that has excellent maternal traits and large litters. They also breed the Oxford Sandy & Black, the very recognisable ginger/red hair with black spots. Both pigs produce succulent tasty pork with fabulous crackling.
At the beginning of February ‘22 Dorian Kirk (AROT Director) Mike Fullard (Head Chef of Leaven Pizza) and Colin Nicholls (Marketing + Photography) headed over to Wild By Nature for an afternoon of charcuterie and talking shop.
Wild by Nature farm, produce and cook farmhouse food in the Black Mountains. They use regenerative farming methods and work with nature, to produce food that is good for you and the earth….
Welcome to our staff stories for January
We want to shout about our incredible staff and all they bring to the restaurant, without them we wouldn’t have anything! We will be featuring a few people from our wonderful team each month and talking a little about what they do for A Rule of Tum.
Welcome to our staff stories for November!
We want to shout about our incredible staff and all they bring to the restaurant, without them we wouldn’t have anything! We will be featuring a few people from our wonderful team each month and talking a little about what they do for A Rule of Tum.
Leaven was originally started by Jon Stead (one of the founders of A Rule of Tum) and Lara Castro-Griffiths. They started Leaven to share the food that they love with their community, to make pizza and do good.
Now that Leaven is a part of the A Rule of Tum family we want to continue to do the same.
You’ll continue to see the same sourdough pizzas that Leaven is known for, including the passion and quality Jon & Lara lived by. We will be using the same starter for the dough and the same high quality ingredients.
After the last few months of building work, Maneki Ramen is back open with a slick new restaurant in Arch 44, Worcester.
Maneki Ramen opened on July 28, serving a range of ramen bowls and Japanese side dishes from head chef Pete Dovaston, who brings a modern twist to some of his favourite tastes from his travels. Working for A Rule of Tum’s Burger Shop in Worcester, Pete progressed from trying out his simple Japanese dishes on fellow staff members to experimenting with a pop-up ramen bar in the adjoining railway arch. Launched in November 2020, it quickly built a loyal following during the pandemic, laying the foundations for something more permanent.
We’ve been building again! This time over in Worcester to give Mankei Ramen a brand new restaurant space in Arch 44.
Maneki Ramen started as a pop-up restaurant in September 2020 (then called Lucky Cat Noodle) and from day one the food and concept proved incredibly popular.
Soon after it was the November lockdown and we couldn’t be open to the public as planned and had to rely on a takeaway and delivery service to get things off the ground, but December soon rolled around and we could once again welcome people into the pop-up space in Arch 45…
Meet Kirsty, General manager of our Hereford sites; Burger Shop Hereford, The Bookshop, The Yard, and Barabeka.
Kirsty first joined the team at old Bookshop (before we expanded) in 2019 as assistant manager and has gone on to become a core part of the AROT family…
To say that the last year has been challenging would be an understatement. With the personal and professional challenges Covid brought the pre-pandemic world seems like a lifetime ago, but we are still here and we’re in an incredible position to bring A Rule of Tum into the future.
Our survival over the last year has been down to our loyal customers who supported us with takeaways, burger kits, and Sunday Lunches as well as our hardworking staff, of which we are proud to say we have managed to retain all of our staff, without having to lay anyone off…
“My work with A Rule of Tum started in Burger Shop Worcester. I used to enjoy making simple Japanese dishes for the staff.
After many hours of writing a menu based upon my memories and experiences living and working in Asia, it felt right to open a restaurant where the food was from the cuisine I enjoyed the most, both to cook and eat.
We are constantly trying to improve our flavours and methods to achieve this via research and testing new dishes. I’m also very fortunate that the whole team at Lucky Cat Noodle is also striving for perfection.
The Bookshop is a steak-led restaurant that opened in 2015 and is one of three restaurants in the ‘A Rule of Tum’ group.
In 2018, with rising rents at our Hereford site and a desire to bring a greater food offering locally, we launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to expand our restaurants and secure our future. We successfully raised over £500,000.
As ‘A Rule of Tum’ grows and takes its place in the world, we want to ensure that we are doing as much as we can to maintain an ethical and good-for-the-planet approach to business.
One step we are taking to ensure this goal is to be responsible for our waste; to make sure we reduce the amount we produce, and to make sure that the waste we do produce isn't left as a problem for future generations to deal with.
For the past few years we have taken over St. John’s place for the duration of the Hay Festival and this year is no exception, from the 23rd May to the 2nd June we will be serving our award winning burgers, sides and craft beers to the crowds of the festival.
We’re not in the festival itself, instead, we take up residence at a wonderful little restaurant in the town, just up the hill from the Clock tower, past Richard booths bookshop and we’re on the corner.
See you there!
Part 2 of 2…
Out of a love for food and for celebrating local makers, artisans and restaurants the first indie food festival was born in 2016, using the space behind the Burger Shop and The Bookshop the humble, overgrown car park was turned into an incredible festival of music food and culture.
People loved the festival and the following year things were stepped up even more attracting 4000 visitors to Hereford to sample the offerings.
A Rule of Tum began back in 2013 when the creative minds of Brothers Edwin and Dorian Kirk, along with their close friend Jon Stead decided to bring about a change in Herefordshire food culture and begin the journey towards bringing great dining experiences to the people of Herefordshire and beyond.
The first venture started with a series of suppers and Sunday lunches at Dunkerton’s farm in Pembridge, Herefordshire, these were all sell out events, and the money raised form these allowed the boys to kick start their business and get the ball rolling with a more permanent food offering.
Here at A Rule of Tum we love to collaborate with local makers, suppliers and restaurants, so when the opportunity came up to do beer pairing dinner with the Hereford Beer House we jumped at the chance.
The Hereford Beer House stocks beer from all over the world supplied by the best craft breweries around, as well as a range of amazing Herefordshire ciders. They have 10 taps in their shop so you can enjoy a beer or cider or fill up a growler to take away and enjoy at home.
Ambiente, a group of restaurants based in Prague was firmly on the list when owners of A Rule of Tum visited a few years back, with a strong focus on a meat driven range of places to eat as well as a great sense of style, Ambiente’s restaurants were something to greatly admire.
This time round the welcome was ours to give, Tomas Karpisek and some of Ambient’s business leaders came to Hereford to see our fantastic restaurants, farms and the people that make up this wonderful county.
Salt. It’s the world’s most used seasoning, it can flavour, cure, preserve and clean, and in our restaurants it’s a key ingredient of our cooking.
Droitwich Salt is sourced from one of the oldest and purest brine springs in the world, we use it because of its superior flavour, from seasoning our patties at the Burger Shop to sprinkling on our Sunday roast potatoes in The Bookshop.
Since A Rule of Tum first began we’ve always been working hard to bring people amazing, locally sourced food. We’ve opened 3 restaurants and sparked a food revolution in Hereford, and it’s incredible to see all of that hard work rewarded when we are featured in amazing publications such as Truth, Love & Clean Cutlery.
Truth, Love & Clean Cutlery is ‘a guide to the truly good restaurants and food experiences of the united kingdom’, edited by Times columnist and award winning restaurant critic Giles Coren.
Putting Hereford on the food map.
Herefordshire has always created incredible produce. We have some of the best meat in the country. As an agricultural county we have farmers and growers right on our doorstep.
Our city is full of incredible people who work trielessly to bring us amazing food and drink. It is a city that deserves to be visited for its food alone; the growers in the market, the independent restaurants, cafés, pubs and bars. These places and people bring the best of Herefordshire to the forefront.
Close your eyes...
Can you remember the last time you were hit with a scent that immediately transported you back to a time or place? Smells and flavours have a funny way of evoking a certain feeling of emotion or nostalgia.
For The Bookshop’s Chef Tom Lynch, this has very much been the driving force behind his love for cooking Indian food.
Our friends at Chase Distillery are packing up their Landy's and heading to Burger Shop Worcester to host a tasting event to showcase their range of award winning single-estate spirits. Oh, and did we mention that Chef Rupert's prepared a scrummy nibbles menu to accompany it (see below).
Based on the families’ farm in Herefordshire, William Chase began distilling vodka and gin from the potatoes grown on his farm back in 2008. Having previously set up Tyrrells Crisps, Will has successfully been able to turn his humble spuds into some truly amazing products.
This month we turned to our Polish Head Chef, Paula in Burger Shop Worcester to educate us on her countries exciting, rich and hearty cuisine. Often underrated, polish food is perhaps not the most popular of choices, but certainly worth trying.
Polish cuisine is the result of a treasured lure of ancestral ingredients, meaning still to this day the average Pole carries shaman-like knowledge of ingredients and recipes passed down from previous generations. Root vegetables, wild mushrooms and breads are the obvious traditional staple fare of this Slavic influenced country
Life starts all over again when it becomes crisp in the autumn. As the leaves begin to fall, and frosty mornings become the norm, we love plotting hearty recipes that guarantee to keep us warm and cozy during the damp and dreary winter months.
As cold and flu season hovers, it's important that we continue to nourish our bodies with the right foods in order to keep our immune systems in check. A nourishing all rounder, packed full of vitamins, minerals, collagen and keratins, bone broth helps boost our immune systems, improves gut health and aids in digestion. No wonder it’s one of the oldest remedies used to cure, sooth, and nurture the sick.
Autumn is upon us, and is without a doubt one of my favourite seasons. It's a time for reflection and appreciation. A time to give thanks to all of the hardworking farmers and producers who have worked tirelessly to provide us with this year's harvest.
Along with it's rural, natural beauty, Autumn brings with it the start of cold and flu season. Living a well-balanced lifestyle is important to staying healthy, and we look no further than our friend, Nutritional Therapist, Debbie Lewis, who has devoted her life to Functional Medicine.
Meet the man behind our brioche buns, organic artisan baker Alex Gooch.
Bread has always been a passion of Alex’s since he began training as a chef when he was seventeen. As his career began to flourish, so did his love for bread.
Recently we took a trip to Alex's bakery in Hay-on-Wye to see his process first hand. It's all about early mornings and patience for Alex and his team, as a simple batch of brioche, for example, can take up to 24 hours to create. Mixing, proving, hand shaping, baking, cooling - the life of a baker can be tedious and far from glamorous, but the end result is delicious and truly rewarding.
I stumbled upon A Rule of Tum a few years ago when a friend and I were looking for new and exciting places to eat. I had always liked the look of Burger Shop Hereford, so we decided to make the trip from Worcester to check it out. We weren't disappointed, the food was amazing, the staff were friendly - I just loved it!
Jump ahead a few years and I'm now working for them at Burger Shop Worcester under the arches. It's a small team, but it makes me feel comfortable, as I know everyone. They're a friendly bunch and so easy to get along with. I cannot wait to continue my journey working for them.
Based on the families’ farm in Herefordshire, William Chase began distilling vodka and gin from the potatoes grown on his farm back in 2008. Having previously set up Tyrrells Crisps, Will has successfully been able to turn his humble spuds into some truly amazing products that we’ve always been proud to share with our customers.
If you're in Hereford or Worcester this Saturday evening and fancy a free G+T, swing by the Burger Shop for some food and drinks.