The Urchin, Hove

Hidden away in an implausible backstreet of Hove, this is a quite fancy looking gastro-pub with an emphasis on seafood, and also the home of the Larrikin Brewery. Having already abandoned one visit here earlier in the day due to a large queue, I returned later on to find a similar number of people waiting outside, but this time I persevered and managed to get a table after ten minutes or so. A corner entrance takes you into a fairly uninspiring main bar, set out in an L-shape due to the positioning of the servery to the rear right. There are extremely scuffed floorboards, gastro-grey walls and limited seating in the form of high tables and stools around the perimeter, all of which is a little underwhelming but perhaps the norm for this sort of gastro pub. The bar has a timber fronted counter held together by rows of heavy-duty bolts, plus what appeared to be a pewter top, a simple bar back and a metal cage gantry. A second room to the right looked much nicer, with bright lighting, blue walls and some proper tables and chairs, although the ‘don’t leave your table’ rule meant I couldn’t manage more than a cursory glance. The majority of customers were seated outside in a beer garden to the left of the pub which seemed to have plenty of picnic benches positioned in semi-secluded spots between bright floral displays, some under shelters, others catching the last rays of sun of the day. Almost everyone was eating – I was the only drinker I could spot – and the queue never really died down at any point during my stay. Sadly, there was just the one cask ale available – Long Man Best Bitter – although a row of handpulls suggests that this might not always be the case. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a great pint, tasting a bit musty and past its best, so I was left rueing the decision to ignore the keg taps which included at least on Larrikin brew. Staff here were pretty overworked and struggled with finding time to seat new arrivals on top of dealing with endless food and drink orders, although they remained calm and polite throughout. I found this one difficult to assess, as I was unsure if my visit was being unduly influenced by the Covid restrictions the pub has had to implement. The bar area was certainly not a space I enjoyed spending time in, with both the other room and the garden looking like better spots. Meanwhile, the beer wasn’t up to much, but this could be due to lower throughput since reopening, so it’s difficult to say whether I would’ve enjoyed this more in other circumstances. Ultimately though, this was probably the pub I enjoyed the least on my Portslade and Hove crawl and I think I would only consider returning if I intended to have some food.

The Bell is a little out of the way as it is tucked down a backstreet behind Tesco. There are a couple of picnic tables on the path out the front and some more behind a fence to the side of the pub. The A board advertises the quiz that takes place on the last Wednesday of every month, moviedrome that happens every Monday and comes with free popcorn and various food deal nights throughout the rest of the week. The L shaped bar area is by the entrance to the left of the pub and the draught available was Fosters, San Miguel, Guinness and Addlestones cider. There are also four hand pumps that were drawing Otter Ale, Harvey’s Best, Bass and Thatcher’s Heritage cider. The right hand side of the pub houses more seating and gives access to the advertised beer garden that I didn’t visit on this occasion. I didn’t spot any televisions, but the Six Nations was advertised for the following weekend so there must be a screen somewhere. There was some background music playing during my Tuesday evening visit a couple of weeks ago and the service was very friendly. Unfortunately there was only one other customer so atmosphere was lacking. This isn’t the sort of pub I would make a special trip to revisit.