New menu and new look for Northamptonshire village pub and restaurant as bosses look to start 2025 on a high

The pub in Hall Hill has seen plenty of renovations to its bar and dining area, with new flooring, a fresh coat of paint and updated works to the toilets expected to be completed in January.

Kieron has high hopes for the pub as he enters his third year of stewardship. He said: “It’s been really good. Support from the locals has always been 10/10, they’ve always stuck by us. It’s been brilliant.

“With the amount of pubs shutting in the UK alone, let alone local, you’d struggle to get through the door 10 years ago, they were that busy but now there’s nothing.

"We would rather earn a million pounds from a million people rather than a million pounds out of two people.

“We were always at a good level and have done well out of the place, but since we got a new chef it’s been a step up.”

Kieron took on the running of The Green Dragon, a Grade II-listed building in December 2022, in Brigstock after a break from the industry.

He had formerly risen from pot-wash at The Warren in Kettering, then into the kitchen at the Red Lion in Cranford, and continued through the ranks at other local bars and restaurants, before returning to take on The Green Dragon two years ago on a decade-long lease that he insists ‘came up at the right time.’

New head chef Dylan Shepherd, from Brigstock, went through catering college while still working, and has previously spent time as a chef at the Wheatsheaf in Titchmarsh, and now brings his own menu into The Green Dragon to give the pub a new flavour, while also allowing Kieron to take a step back from kitchen duties.

He got his start at 15 as a pot-wash, which spurred an interest in hospitality, and led to him starting to help prep food, which progressed into a full role as a chef.

Dylan said: “I fell in love with it there and then. It was a small place but it felt nice. At a young age it was a real sense of pride.

“Because I was still working, I was excelling at college because I already have that experience. It was making me happy, and I was just chasing that happiness, and I just went from there.”

The lunch menu is centered around classic comfort food and pub classics such as scampi, sausage and mash, as well as the tried-and-tested fish and chips.

For the main menu, Dylan decided to flex his culinary muscles with something more sophisticated, including the likes of honey-glazed duck breast, pan-seared sea bass and mushroom tagliatelle.

Christmas is shaping up to be a busy time for The Green Dragon, with bookings for the 25th selling out in 14 minutes, and the Boxing Day hunt expected to go ahead the next day.