Lowick pub back in business - and it hopes to become county's finest free house

When Richard Gordon and Sonya Harvey took over at The Snooty Fox in January 2020, they hoped to be open within three months.

Staff were employed at the Lowick pub, rent was paid and thousands of pounds were spent on an extensive refurbishment before their plans were scuppered by the Covid pandemic.

Now, more than two years on, the business partners have finally welcomed their first customers at the pub – and they’ve set their sights on becoming known as the county’s finest free house.

Richard, who won a gold award for F&B Achiever of the Year in the Northamptonshire Food & Drink Awards 2020/21, said: “Following lots of bumps in the road due to the challenges of the pandemic, we are thrilled to have finally opened the doors to The Snooty Fox.

"We can’t wait for people to come and experience this cracking pub for themselves.”

The free house, which has created about 40 jobs, is the third to be opened by Richard and Sonya’s Greedy Gordons Pub Group, which also runs award-winning pubs The Red Lion at Cranford and The Pig & Waffle at Grafton Underwood.

The pub will celebrate local and British produce, with frequently changing menus, and later this year some dishes will feature fresh fruit and vegetables from its own kitchen garden which is being set up on land in nearby Brigstock.

Dishes currently on the menu include warm scotch eggs, roast pork belly, dry-aged steaks, fresh oysters and sustainable native lobsters from the pub’s own kitchen tank, which were caught in North Wales. They are also serving a ‘chicken Kyiv’ with £2 from every portion sold being donated to the British Red Cross Ukraine Crisis Appeal. Puddings at the pub include mini brioche doughnuts and a pistachio souffle.

The Snooty Fox’s head chef is Luke Marsh, whose first head chef role was with Michelin-starred chef Clive Dixon at Snooty Inns, a previous owner of The Snooty Fox. Luke’s 20 years’ chef experience also includes time at Stamford’s Slanted Door and The George of Stamford, as well as running a tapas restaurant in southern Spain.

Luke said: “It is amazing and emotional to be back at The Snooty Fox, which is such a wonderful pub.

"Our menus are about respecting the incredible produce we are sourcing from some of Britain’s, and the world’s, best suppliers and letting its wonderful flavours do the talking.”

Another familiar face at the venue will be general manager Matt Sear, who was previously manager at sister pub The Red Lion in Cranford.

The Snooty Fox will also offer board games, darts and a Space Invaders machine and will sell cocktails and real ales, including local beers from Phipps of Northampton and Pot Belly Brewery in Kettering.

Its refurbishment includes opulent chandeliers, gold bathroom basins, beer barrel urinals and a fabricator’s cabinet which featured on Channel 4 show ‘Mend it for Money’.

The Lowick pub made national headlines earlier this year when Geoff Monks, who ran it in the late 1990s, won a £4m payout after being wrongly prosecuted by the now-abolished East Northamptonshire Council.