James May issues scathing verdict on Jeremy Clarkson's pub after string of 'disasters'

James May believes that his pub is "better" than his former co-star Jeremy Clarkson's. The petrolheads have always had a friendly rivalry, from the days they used to work together on iconic show Top Gear before they - and Richard Hammond - jumped ship to Amazon to front The Grand Tour in 2016.

And it seems that the two men are still enjoying making cheeky digs at one another. May, 62, opened The Royal Oak on the outskirts of Salisbury in 2021, and Clarkson, 64, began welcoming customers to The Farmer's Dog on his sprawling Oxfordshire farm last year.

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Naturally, comparisons have been drawn between the two boozers, but May insists that they're in different leagues. Speaking to host Tom Burges Watson, May said: "‘Mine’s much better. I think that’s the main difference.

"I haven’t actually been to Jeremy’s pub. I’ve met a few people who have," he said. "It sounds like, well, from what I can gather, he’s gone for a sort of mass throughput model. So he’s got hundreds of people queuing up to have his burger, whereas ours is a little bit more relaxed."

May added: "It’s a village pub where people come. The food is great, we’ve got a fabulous chef and team of chefs.

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"So mine would feel more like, more like a regular English pub. It’s not old fashioned, it hasn’t got horse brass on the walls or any of that tweed stuff, there’s no Morris dancing. I won’t allow that. It is just a pub."

May also admitted that he is finding it "extremely difficult" to stay afloat in the current crisis, and although his pub is "successful", it has only "just survived".

It's a similar situation to Clarkson, who has been open about how hard he has found it to turn a profit and the "total disasters" he has been faced with since becoming a publican.

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Writing in his column in The Times last year, he said: "It’s galling to see how much effort is required to make so little money on the farm.

"It’s worse at the pub. The customers are coming. There’s no problem there. But turning their visits into a profit is nigh-on impossible."

May previously joked to The Telegraph that he and Clarkson were "creatively fuelled by a mutual loathing" - and that's why their "dynamic worked".

But squashing any hints of a serious feud, Clarkson later responded: "We’ve spent more time in each other’s company than our families’ over the last 25 years so I don’t think it would have lasted as long as it did if we’d hated each other as much as James likes to think."

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