CALLED TO THE BAR Jodie Kidd tells KITTY BUCHANAN-GREGORY how she transformed a West Sussex watering hole into an award-winning foodie destination
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Fashion director NICOLE SMALLWOOD Photography DAN KENNEDY have a very excited and politely apologetic Jodie Kidd on the end of a phone; the day that we were due to have our interview she won a big award for her new pub and was quite rightly celebrating with a very large bottle of rosé. A few weeks later we are at her beautiful Sussex house for the cover shoot and I’m greeted with a huge hug from her and a nuzzle from Monty, her rescued racehorse and cover co-star. Jodie is famous for a variety of glamorous antics – the fashion, the polo, the parties, competing in hard-core sports events and driving cars really, really fast. But what do supermodels do when they grow up? You might have expected her next career to be jumping out of a plane or launching a perfume, but she’s surprised many by adding ‘landlady’ to her list of job titles. The anomaly of a supermodel running a gastropub makes more sense once you know she was a finalist on Celebrity Masterchef in 2014, impressing John Torode and Greg Wallace on TV’s toughest cookery show with her tenacity in the kitchen. The passion for cooking stayed with her and in 2017 she bought The Half Moon country pub in Kirdford, West Sussex. This wasn’t just any pub; a country girl at heart, Jodie grew up nearby and even held her 21st birthday there, so when The Half Moon came up for sale, she and two friends, Chris Lee and Dan Elson, stepped in and bought it. ‘Any pub is the heart of the community,’ she says. ‘It’s where locals go to meet and gossip, have a birthday meal, gather for Sunday lunch with the family and share good times with friends. I had so many happy memories here, and the village was worried it was going to be turned into a second home, so that’s when I knew I wanted to buy it and keep it as a working pub.’ A head or heart decision? ‘Both. An emotional decision at first but once we agreed the plans for the pub, it made total sense.’ She and her team worked on renovations for seven months. ‘I did everything,’ Jodie says, ‘one of the first things was to build and plant a vegetable garden for the kitchen. I worked out what we wanted on the menu, what we needed to plant, the height of the beds and between my mother and I, we’re both out there everyday watering the plants.’ The Half Moon has now been restored as a quintessential country pub – subtle equestrian and country sports touches in the interior design, open fires in winter, and a large garden for Pimms and summer parties. It’s in a winning
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