The Porter, Bath

Since my previous review this has undergone an extensive renovation and is now something of an uber pub split across four floors. The basement remains as a music/comedy venue whilst the former pub on the ground floor is now an upmarket restaurant known as Clayton’s Kitchen. The pub part is on the first floor although it’s now more of a trendy bar than your traditional boozer, whilst the top floor is apparently a “library and study”. The bar area consists of a couple of rooms with a small hallway in between and has wood strip flooring, slate style wallpaper and various artwork on the walls. The bar counter has a rolled copper top and it generally exudes an air of expensive plushness. Despite being something of a cocktail venue (the friendly barman rustled up something gin based for Mrs. B) it also has something of a craft beer offering and is hence all keg. On this occasion the range consisted of Camden Ink Stout, The Kernel, Bellerose, Cromarty’s 2 Craigs Unstout, Bristol Beer Factory’s Heffe, Jaipur IPA, Arbour’s Black Stout and Thornbridge Tzara. Ciders meanwhile were Aspall’s Harrow Sparrow and Devon Mist. As previously mentioned, the restaurant area is quite upmarket and has a contemporary appearance. It seems very popular and the waiter turned away a number of prospective punters suggesting that they needed to book two or three weeks in advance to be able to get a table on a Saturday evening. Main courses were in the £15 - £20 range and whilst it was no doubt all top quality nosh some of it was not quite what we had expected. Fillets of lemon sole with a chive sauce for example came swimming in a pool of cream and was far too rich. Conversely, a Cannon of lamb with dauphinoise potatoes was really very good indeed. Deserts were a similarly mixed bag with a salted caramel chocolate mousse being quite exquisite, whilst a lemon meringue pie was in a deconstructed form. Overall I enjoyed our visit here and would happily return to try something else, but if you’re after a more traditional boozer then this may not be the best option.