Although the term was once met with ridicule, gastropubs have become an essential part of our restaurant landscape. What is it that makes gastropubs so great? A desire for good quality pub food was the initial driving force, but it’s just as much the atmosphere and accessibility that makes them special. Gastropubs have a unique flexibility - the best ones cater just as well for celebration dinners as they do for locals who want to gossip over a pint.
There’s something intrinsically British and Irish about pubs - they’re a unique cultural phenomenon. Stosie Madi’s Parkers Arms in Newton-in-Bowland, Lancashire, has long been considered one of the country’s very best gastropubs, but Stosie is far from your typical British publican.
Champagne AYALA: Celebrating over 160 years of history, Champagne AYALA was one of the original twenty-six Grandes Marques Champagne Houses. The House received a Royal Warrant in 1908 and became a part of the Bollinger family in 2005. With its longstanding commitment to the restaurant industry, Champagne AYALA is known for its chardonnay driven, low-dosage wines, crafted with precision and delicacy in a boutique scale. These wines are the ultimate epicurean pairing, it’s no wonder they have been served in the UK for over 100 years in many of London’s most prestigious establishments.
Born in Senegal to a British father and a French mother, Stosie lived in The Gambia for many years, until political unrest forced her to leave. Her parents were expatriates who worked for their respective governments in French Senegal and British Gambia, but Stosie also has considerable Lebanese heritage, as both her parents were the children of Lebanese merchant traders. That all adds up to about as diverse a cultural heritage as you will find - a melting pot that has always given Stosie a distinct perspective on food.
![stosie madi at the parkers arms]()
‘My family always had hospitality businesses in The Gambia, but nobody in my family cooked in the businesses,’ she explains. ‘They ran the businesses. My father used to entertain a lot at home, so my mum would cook a lot. She was a Cordon Bleu cook. I grew up in a house where cooking was very essential - it was always part of my DNA.’
When her father passed away, Stosie took over the businesses, eventually selling them and opening her own restaurant when her mother retired. ‘When I told my mother that I would be cooking in my restaurant, she said, “why would anybody who has opportunities in life want to do that?” That always stayed with me, because I know lots of people who got into cheffing because they didn’t have options. But I wanted to cook, it’s what I chose to do.’
'I grew up in a house where cooking was very essential - it was always part of my DNA.’
Stosie was born in Senegal in 1970, the same year that The Gambia received independence from Britain, and just a year after Senegal separated itself from French rule. Independence is a precarious tightrope that brings significant change, good and bad, and by the 1990s The Gambia’s political situation was deteriorating. In 1994, former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh took power via coup d’etat, and over the following years his rule would become increasingly repressive and dictatorial. On 10 April 2000, Gambian police responded to student protests in Banjul by firing live ammunition into the crowd, killing 14 students. Further protests around the country were violently suppressed.
‘We had to go and get our children from school because the President was shooting at students,’ says Stosie. ‘We watched from our house as they opened fire. I didn’t want my daughter to grow up in that environment, to experience that political angst. So, we decided to come to the UK.’
By this time Stosie had met business partners Kathy Smith and AJ Nolan, both of whom are originally from Rossendale, just a short way from Newton-in-Bowland. Peaceful, quietly beautiful with a strong sense of community, Clitheroe was exactly what Stosie and her adopted daughter Laudy were looking for in a new home. Stosie and Kathy had raised some funds from selling their restaurants in The Gambia, and invested that into Stosie’s first restaurant in Clitheroe - Weezos.
'Weezos did well, but it was a very, very small building - it was only a 24-seater,' Stosie explains. 'When we bought the freehold, we were told we’d get the planning but we never did. It cost us a lot of money. So, we started looking around and that’s when we found The Parkers Arms.'
![the parkers arms]()
On first viewing, The Parkers Arms wasn’t immediately auspicious. Sleepy Newton-in-Bowland has a population of a few hundred, and there isn’t another pub or restaurant for a good five miles around. ‘It looked like the Mary Celeste when we first saw it,’ says Stosie. ‘People had just dumped tools and walked out. But then I stood out there and looked at the view and I thought, I would love to work here. I missed Africa and its sense of freedom. It was lovely to be able to get right back into nature and I felt I could do it here.’
That meant immediate changes, not least for the good people of Newton-in-Bowland, who were used to The Parkers Arms serving pretty standard pub grub. Stosie delved deep into her own French and Lebanese heritage, and started serving a compact, no-nonsense menu that used local, seasonal produce. On the first Sunday they opened, hordes arrived looking for the usual weekend carvery, and were sorely disappointed to find Stosie cooking beautiful, seasonal food. ‘The first five years from 2007 to 2013 were very, very tough,’ she says. ‘Sometimes we would sit here on a cold winter’s night, all the fires on, and two customers in for dinner.’
Herein lies a side of Stosie lesser seen. She's a generous, benevolent host, but underneath there's steely determination and self-assurance. Those freezing January evenings would have deterred many, but Stosie pressed on, turning to social media to spread the word about The Parkers Arms. Slowly the tide turned. People started following - customers, but also more notable figures. Thom Hetherington from Manchester’s Finest, for example, was one of the first to share the word. Momentum gathered. Then one day, Jay Rayner showed up and wrote about Stosie’s ‘gutsy Lebanese sausages’ for The Guardian, and that was it - The Parkers Arms was on the map.
![stosie madi cooking at the parkers arms]()
Since then, it has become one of the UK’s most recognisable destination pubs - a perennial award-winner mentioned in every award list worth its salt, including the SquareMeal Top 100 UK Restaurants list, where it sits at number 35 in the country. In 2021, The Parkers Arms appeared on an episode of the Hairy Bikers Go North, where Si King and the late, great Dave Myers visited Stosie and learned how to make her now-iconic pies; the pub still welcomes guests regularly who have come on a pilgrimage after watching the episode. ‘We’re so thankful to the Hairy Bikers for what they did,’ says Stosie. ‘After the pandemic when businesses might have been struggling, it helped propel us further. It filled our restaurant three times over on a daily basis.’
‘It’s about what we put on the plate. When you come to The Parkers, it should be like coming home.’
Although The Parkers Arms is successful now, Stosie still empathises with pub owners all over the country who are struggling amid the current economic landscape. ‘People want to stay at home and come in for an occasional pint, maybe a meal once a month, but that’s not going to pay our bills,’ she laments. ‘How do we pay our staff wages? How do we pay our bills? How do we pay our taxes, our supplies?’
Ultimately, though, The Parkers Arms has something special that no other pub in the country can claim to have. Stosie’s distinct cookery - French foundations, with Lebanese and West African influence - is utterly unique, glorious and unrestrained. She is entirely self-taught, and refuses to limit the bounds of her creativity. Trends predominate this era of food, but underneath that, Stosie is furrowing her own path. ‘I have never really wanted to have somebody else’s influence on my cooking. I always wanted it to be mine,’ she says. Once upon a time, she met immovable opposition when trying to serve fish with tabbouleh instead of chips. ‘They’d say, “I’ll have the fish, but can I have some chips instead of that funny stuff,”’ she laughs. Now, guests travel from overseas to eat Stosie’s food.
And yet, The Parkers Arms isn’t fussy. The three course menu is a very reasonable £50. When you walk in, you’ll probably see AJ manning the bar. Stosie will be in the kitchen, because if she isn’t, the pub doesn’t open. This is the essence of a good gastropub, and this is what makes the Parkers Arms special. ‘It’s not about how beautiful the place is, or how much we’ve spent on the glassware,’ says Stosie. ‘It’s about what we put on the plate. When you come to The Parkers, it should be like coming home.’
Stosie’s perfect match for AYALA's Le Blanc de Blancs A/18
The dish: Tartare of wild, line-caught, dayboat, Morecambe Bay sea bass, kibbeh nayeh style
The Champagne: AYALA Le Blanc de Blancs A/18
![stosie madi sea bass tartare]()
Stosie explains: 'Kibbeh nayeh is Lebanese for ‘raw dish’, usually a protein of some kind. In Lebanese tradition we eat a lot of raw meat and raw fish, and kibbeh is when you mould the meat with spices, so it cures the meat. Instead of mincing the fish like you would in Lebanon, I chopped it up very finely, more like a French tartare. The flavours that bind it are typical Lebanese flavours. The main spice in there is something called kamouney, which is a blend of spices grown in the mountains of Lebanon - essentially a selection of about seven spices, including cinnamon, Aleppo pepper, dried mint, along with some dried rose petals. There are wild garlic capers for acidity, and finally some pomegranate juice, which brings a little bitterness and sweetness to the dish. The Champagne has this beautiful purity and cleanliness of flavour, so it actually pairs well with a dish that brings a bit of its own acidity as well as a punch of flavour.'
Stosie's quick bites
Who or what have been your biggest influences?
Without doubt my mother and my grandmother.
If you could give someone just starting out some words of wisdom, what would they be?
Get out there. Eat. Travel. Learn. Make notes. Don’t ever stick to one thing, move, move, move and sponge it all in.
Describe your cooking style in three words?
Generous. Flavour-packed. Seasonal.
What is your favourite thing to cook at home?
Rice! I'm West African. We live on grains. I've always got rice in the fridge. Anything left over goes on the rice, whether it's broth, protein, greens. I've always got rice at home.
What's your guilty food pleasure?
Eggs, chips and beans! I love that. That's my ultimate comfort. I love it. That's my English upbringing. And it's got to be Heinz. I like them because they particularly have that sweetness and not the non-sugar thing either, not the low sugar ones.
What’s your favourite foodie destination?
Istanbul. I love Istanbul. Iit's wonderful. The minute you get off that plane and you land into Istanbul, it hits you. It's all there. Europe, Asia. Arabia. It's wonderful.
What do you do to relax?
I take my dogs out everyday on long foraging walks. The dogs keep me sane!
If you weren't a chef what would you be?
A spy! I wanted to be an international translator. I speak six languages, and I always wanted to be a spy. Not because I'm nosey, well yes, because I'm a bit nosey as well, but I'm very good at listening. I would have wanted to be a spy, for sure.
What was the last great thing you ate?
I think the last great thing that I ate would be in Istanbul, and it was a lamb’s liver kebab, and it was spectacular. In a wonderful place. I’m going back soon because it was so good.
Explore more of our chef interviews in partnership with AYALA, including Adriana Cavita, Adejoké Bakare and April Lily Partridge.