The Old Mill, Bristol

Since my previous review this has undergone two changes of ownership and two name changes, and has clearly had an extensive refurbishment being largely unrecognisable from the last time I was in here. A beer garden at the rear has obviously also had considerable investment as well and now looks quite smart with covered seating, AstroTurf and gas heaters. Internally it’s quite contemporary in style with a wood strip floor in the majority of the pub and the main bar has been opened out with just a dual aspect fireplace and chimney breast now separating what was previously two separate rooms. A whole stack of large church candles were arranged on the mantelpiece above. The colour scheme is mostly a very pale yellow with contrasting deep maroon in places, and there were a few artistic photographs on the walls. Another room at the rear had flagstone style tiles on the floor and a second smaller bar counter, although despite two pumps there were no ales on here on our visit. It looked as though there may have been further seating upstairs, although we did not investigate this. The menu offered a decent looking selection of food, with the usual suspects of fish & chips, ham egg & chips, steak and ale pie, lasagne, etc., as well as some more unusual dishes such as sun dried tomato, cheese and basil pie or an avocado and chick pea hummus . Prices seemed a little bit above your normal pub prices, with both the fish & chips and the burger coming in at £12.50 for example. On the whole, the food was ok but nothing outstanding and not really worth the premium charged. Beers on tap were Doom Bar and Timothy Taylor Landlord whilst the ciders were Thatcher’s Gold and Haze. Overall, whilst there’s nothing really wrong with this pub, it didn’t have much in the way of atmosphere, the barmaid was pretty clueless and I couldn’t really work out if it was trying to be a pub or one of those all day lounge type bars. Not somewhere I’ll be rushing back to.