How to host an ‘English safari’, with the Public House Group

Across the lake there is the distant sound of gunfire, which would be more ominous if there wasn’t a Guinness tap and a Land Rover heaving with freshly shucked oysters in front of us. We’re in a field near North Leigh, a tiny village in Oxfordshire, at Bushcamp, the latest arm of the deliriously up-and-coming-and-coming-again Public House Group. After successfully taking over The Pelican in Notting Hill in 2022 and turning it into an objectively perfect neighbourhood pub, the team has repeated the trick four times over with The Bull, in nearby Charlbury, west London’s The Hero and The Fat Badger, and most recently The Hart in Marylebone. Bushcamp takes the PHG formula – local produce and community-focused hospitality – but replaces the pub setting with random swaths of British countryside. “We all love being outdoors but some of us just never do it,” says group co-founder Phil Winser, who is leading today’s event. “It’s bonkers: you just spend a bit of time outside and you feel better.”

The pitch is simple – a nomadic, English safari-style experience where three tents are put up in the middle of somewhere only Land Rovers can get to while chefs with long, River Cafe-dotted CVs fire-roast meat and make big green seasonal salads. Each event is bespoke, ranging from shoot days to intimate garden parties. So far, PHG has found its pitches the old-fashioned way: by calling up farmers and landowners and asking, “Do you have a cool spot we could use?” They always do.

Today’s guests include various executives – from Sony, Netflix and Burberry – who have broken the ice by firing at clay pigeons and are now having a glass of champagne near the lake. The English countryside has its own ambient soundtrack – all-hours birdsong, the lazy splash of the water  – but it is joined here by the pops of corks, light tittering and the band Fairvue Music. There are slick, never-been-muddied Barbours and hats. Only one person manages to fall over and they are writing this sentence right now. Everyone arrives (and will later depart) by mounting and dismounting a shoot trailer in a surprisingly elegant way.

The day is an adjunct to the Oxfordshire experience already offered at The Bull at Charlbury, which has 10 rooms and a guest cottage. Winser has plans for a larger pub with rooms nearby, as well as a farm shop and a hospitality school that will be an extension of nearby Bruern Farms, which supplies most of the group’s fresh produce. “I really care about provenance,” says Winser, who spearheads PHG’s design and concepts; his partners James Gummer and Olivier van Themsche run the operations and business sides respectively. “In this industry, you have to do things that bring you pleasure – and remind you why you do it,” says Winser. “Bushcamp is a love story to the countryside and food, and how to connect those two things.”

Back in the field, the guests are eating coal-charred marrow toast as platters of fire-cooked scallops start to emerge. There are firepits surrounded by sheepskin-rugged chairs, and the gentle plucking of a double bass in the background. Plates of lamb and turbot in brown butter are served on heaving long tables. Dessert is a spectacular apple crumble with custard and ice cream. After the plates are cleared everyone has one last drink while watching the sun set behind the lake.