A shoot day does not wait for a caterer. Elevenses have to be at the drive, not back at the house, and dinner has to be on the table when the guns come in. That is a logistics job before it is a cooking job, which is the part we are good at.

How a day runs

Elevenses. Gala pie or raised game pie, taken out to wherever the guns are. We come to the drive; nobody walks back for it.

Lunch. Seasonal soup, homemade sausage rolls, sausages in a bun or pulled pork in a bun. In the field or at the lodge, whichever the day is built around.

Dinner. Pheasant casserole with cider and apples, oxtail stew, Red Poll beef bourguignon, Lancashire hot pot, lamb shanks in a rich red wine sauce. Then treacle tart or an English apple and blackberry pie, and local cheese with chutney.

When a drive overruns

It will. Holding a dinner hot without the food suffering is the difference between a caterer who has done a hundred shoot days and one who has done three. Nobody eats a dried casserole because the last drive ran long.

Booking a season

Most shoots book a block of days rather than one at a time. We rotate the menu across the season so the same guns are not eating the same casserole in November and January, and it is one contact, one invoice and one agreed running order for every day.

Your own birds

If the shoot wants its own game cooked, we will do it, given reasonable notice and a bird that arrives hung, plucked and dressed. It is worth doing at least once a season; it is the best pheasant anyone will eat.

The full menu

Elevenses, lunch, seven dinner mains, five puddings and a cheese board — the whole shoot menu is on its own page.

Allergens

All fourteen declared allergens are listed against each dish on request, and we ask for every dietary requirement in writing before the tasting. Our kitchen handles nuts, gluten, dairy, egg, fish, shellfish, soya, celery, mustard, sesame, lupin, molluscs and sulphites, so we cannot guarantee any dish is free from traces. (gf) gluten free · (gfo) gluten free on request · (v) vegetarian · (ve) vegan · (vo) vegetarian on request Reeves Events holds a 5-star food hygiene rating.

From the Journal

• Shoot lunches: what good looks like — what separates a well-fed day from a badly fed one.
• More on the shoot season — elevenses, game cookery and booking a season rather than a day.

Feeding people outdoors, in poor weather, to a fixed time is the same problem whether it is a shoot day or a film unit. If you are catering a production on location, see film, TV and crew catering.

Menus

A shoot day has two meals and they are different problems. These are the starting points:

• Shoot lunch and elevenses menus — the ones written for this, including what travels and what does not
• Sharing and feasting menus — where lunch is taken properly at a table indoors
• Barbecue and outdoor menus — for a simulated day or a summer shoot lunch
• Afternoon tea — for the end of the day, or for a smaller party at the house

Tell us the number of guns, whether lunch is indoors or out, and how long you want it to take. That last one decides more than the menu does.

Feeding the beaters

Worth settling at the start, because it is two services rather than one and it changes the quote. Beaters, pickers-up and keepers usually eat separately from the guns, often earlier and often somewhere different — a barn, a trailer, the back of the gun bus.

It should be the same standard of food. A shoot that feeds its guns properly and its beating line badly is noticed by everybody who works on it, and beaters talk to other estates.

Dogs, mud and the practical realities

Wet dogs, wet coats and wet boots come into wherever lunch is served. That is normal and we plan for it rather than being surprised by it. What it means in practice is that anything requiring a pristine setting is the wrong choice, and that hot food arriving quickly matters more than presentation.

We also need to know where our vehicles can get to on the day, in the conditions on the day. A track that is fine in September is a different proposition in January, and the answer determines whether we can set up where you want us or somewhere further back.

Drink, and the thing about the afternoon

Sloe gin, cherry brandy and a bullshot at elevenses are traditional for good reason and we are not going to argue with them. What is worth thinking about is the shape of the afternoon that follows a long lunch with wine.

Some estates want a short, disciplined lunch precisely so the afternoon drives happen properly. Others treat lunch as the centre of the day. Both are entirely legitimate; they just want different food and a different length of service, and it is better to say which you want than to find out at three o’clock.