Hand & Heart, Nottingham

A bit of a walk from the city centre this pub has part of the bar and the eating area cut into the rock.A good selection of real ales with a small discount for CAMRA members.

10 minutes walk out of the city centre, this is a funny-looking bar what with its ungainly late 80’s Lego-esque glass balcony and arch. The inside, as noted extensively elsewhere, hosts a semi-subterranean cave carved into the sandstone which the pub utilises as a drinking and dining area. There’s also a nice conservatory dining area upstairs. GBG-listed (CAMRA discount available) and there were six ales, mainly local, to choose from on my visit with some fantastic choices; I plumped for the Dancing Duck Oatmeal stout which was superb, the best beer of a very long and comprehensive crawl. Service was extremely friendly and we were made to feel right at home; indeed I didn’t really want to have to leave. Music is pushed here, with live Jazz sessions plus a working upright piano and the piped music is of a much higher standard than the usual. The atmosphere was, as you can guess, a little more sophisticated than the norm which suited me. My favourite Nottingham pub of the day and I’ll make a big point of doing this one again. Superb.

This is an interesting pub with some nice Georgian features and an unusual rear section built into a series of sandstone caves. The front bar has a pleasant traditional feel and includes an attractive section of tiled wall on the left hand side of the room. There are a few high tables in this part of the pub, but on my visit, most of the room had been taken up by stilage in preparation for the pub’s Halloween beer festival. Moving past the right hand end of the bar, there is a nice lounge area in a part of the pub where the sandstone can already be seen. Button backed furniture predominates and there is an upright piano against one wall which was covered in various flyers and CAMRA leaflets. A corridor runs further into the rock and leads past a food counter, to a narrow dining room with some small tables set out in two formal rows. Stairs lead up to the first floor conservatory, but I didn’t venture up there myself. Music was playing quietly during my stay and the pub seemed busier than others in the Canning Circus area. The beer selection was one of the best I found during my stay in Nottingham and I was faced with a choice of Magpie Best and When I’m 6.4, Dancing Duck Round Heart, Burton Bridge Sovereign Gold, Nottingham Rock Bitter, Copthorne Black Beauty, Newby Wyke Turpitz and Welbeck Abbey Bay Middleton plus two ciders and a perry. I enjoyed a fantastic pint of the Black Beauty and was a little disappointed that I didn’t have time to sample any of the others. The lone barmaid was very helpful and efficient and did a great job of remembering who was next to be served at the crowded bar. I really liked this unusual pub and thought it would be well worth having an extended drinking session here. For me, this is the best pub in this part of town and should be near the top of the ‘must do’ list of anyone visiting Nottingham.