This article was also published in the Financial Times.
The Churchill Arms, a 100-year-old pub in fashionable Notting Hill Gate, west London, was already displaying some of its cosmopolitan charms as I walked in at 11.15 am.
The sign outside showed the former Prime Minister in a bowler hat clearly displaying his V for Victory sign, while at the bar an American tourist was ordering his first pint of the day from an attractive Australian barmaid, whom he then asked to pose for a photo.
I was there, however, to discover the answers to something that has long bothered me: why are there are so many Thai restaurants in British pubs?
Several phone calls had led me to the Thai restaurant at the back of this pub and to Gerry O'Brien, a genial Irishman who, I was to learn, inadvertently initiated this combination 20 years ago and yet has never been to Thailand, and to Khoyachai Sampaothong, known to all as Paw, who has built up a significant business on the back of this unlikely association.
Authentic, inexpensive Thai food can now be enjoyed in pubs with names as traditional as The Queen's Head in Chesham, Buckinghamshire; The Prince Albert in Twickenham; The Castle in Ealing; Latymers in Hammersmith; and The Old Fish Market in Bristol. At the entrance to The Ivy Public House on Southampton Row, Holborn, is a brass sign offering Authentic Thai Food, while another sign also describes it as a Traditional British Pub. Ben's Thai restaurant in Maida Vale has just moved from one pub to its new home above The Robert Browning pub.
I readily understand how spicy, often hot, Thai food can be a boost to any bar's sales but this combination, however successful, does seem incongruous. And why are so many of these pubs concentrated in west London? These were just some of my questions and, happily, O'Brien, had all the answers.
O'Brien arrived in London from Co Clare at the tender age of 17 to work as a barman and took over as the manager of The Churchill Arms, which belongs to Fullers – now London's only family-owned brewery – in 1985. At that time, simple, mainly frozen, pub food was the order of the day and the current very busy restaurant was an open yard.
'My big problem was what to serve in the evenings', O'Brien explained. 'My customers were happy with pies and sausage and chips at lunch but they wanted much better food at night. Then one day a customer came in and said that he knew a Thai chef called Ben who wanted to come and work here. Apparently, he loved the pub. I just didn't know how to politely say no to such a very good customer.'
O'Brien's scepticism was understandable. Thai food in London in the 1980s was neither popular nor well-known and very few pubs in those days were known for serving good food of any nationality. But much to his consternation, this customer kept persisting with his proposal and soon O'Brien found himself eating Ben's food in the Thai restaurant where he was cooking as a sous-chef and enjoying some of the milder dishes. They agreed to a trial month in July 1988.
The success of the first night stunned O'Brien. 'The kitchen put out a few tasting dishes for my customers to try and everybody loved the food. After just a couple of weeks people were piling in not just to eat but to see what we were doing. These included visits not just from my bosses at Fullers but also from many rival publicans as well.'
But this change of culinary style, O'Brien was to learn, meant a major change to the layout of the kitchen. Most pubs' kitchens in those days involved no more than a large deep freeze and a micro-wave, whereas Thai cooking requires the daily slicing and preparation of boxes and boxes of fresh meat, herbs and vegetables. Space in the basement, once considered inviolate for the storage of the numerous casks of beer, was given over to a cramped but highly efficient preparation kitchen where I watched four Thai chefs dicing onions, red and green peppers and assembling the vegetable spring rolls surrounded by bags of Thai new crop 2008 jasmine rice.
More seating space was also a necessity and within two years the outside yard had become a conservatory and a 65-seater restaurant. The ceiling is now bedecked with hanging baskets; pots of orchids line the ledges of the walls, while the walls themselves are covered in photos of Ireland, Thailand and O'Brien's personal collection of butterflies. It may not be tropical but it certainly feels warm.
And in inadvertently setting in motion this transformation, O'Brien stumbled across two very disparate facts that have been crucial to his pub's subsequent financial success.
The first is that a couple of Thai chefs and a range of five woks can easily fit into a small pub kitchen which, when it was first built, was to be used only to feed the publican and his family. The kitchen at The Churchill Arms is considerably smaller than many domestic ones yet because it focuses on quickly cooked one-plate dishes it can serve a very large number of customers.
By concentrating on 20 main courses, with just prawn crackers and spring rolls as first courses, and no desserts (not really necessary as Thai food is relatively sweet), the kitchen keeps its substantial main courses down to a very affordable £6.50. A price that makes it very attractive as a take-away option, particularly when there is football on the television, O'Brien added.
All of which leaves his customers free to spend more at the bar. 'Every year we've exceeded our sales budget and every year this pub is one of the best performing amongst all the Fullers pubs in terms of beer and wine sales', O'Brien explained with pride.
This fact has not been lost on the directors of Fullers, who now have Thai restaurants in nine pubs, mostly to the west of London, five of them run by Paw, whose enthusiastic team have been working alongside O'Brien for the last 16 years.
When I asked Paw for her opinion of why her restaurants had prospered, her response was a smile and the comment that, 'We put our heart into the cooking.' Our dinner of their two most popular dishes, pad Thai and a roasted duck curry, were full of flavour and excellent value at just over £20 with spring rolls a glass of wine and tea, a combination of reasons why the restaurant was so busy.
This popularity has continued despite the smoking ban, which has affected so many British pubs and initially caused O'Brien great concern. But as we were leaving a group of young Americans with drinks in their hands were moving in to try and find a table in the crowded restaurant. Dinner at The Churchill Arms had provided the answers to my initial quest but I left wondering whether this unlikely combination of Irish charm together with the Thai passion for food could not serve as a successful role model for many struggling British pubs.
The Churchill Arms, 119 Kensington Church Street, London W8. 020-7792 1246