Mill on the Exe, Exeter

This is a rather fancy food-led, multi-room pub and hotel with prime riverside location that lends itself to family dining but is also a reasonable place to enjoy a few drinks. You enter into a bare boarded conservatory style space with a few rugs on the floor to dampen down the noise, and lots of good table and chair seating options, mainly set up for those wanting to eat. Doors at far end lead out to a cracking riverside seating area with fine views and plenty of comfy garden furniture. Turning left from the entrance, allows you to move through to the quarry stone floored bar area with the servery along the far left side wall. The bar has a rather bland counter front and marginally more interesting bar back with a nice bit of exposed brick wall to one side. More mixed seating is available in a small space opposite, under gastro grey walls decorated with various bits of tat passing as contemporary decor. A brick archway takes you through to a rear seating area - by far the nicest spot in the pub for drinkers - with tables and chairs occupying another bare boarded area, which also boasts a comfy leather sofa in front of a large fireplace with a big hood and some oars above. Neutral shaded walls with a few bits of tongue and groove panelling, have been decorated with a great many photos and paintings, all under some impressive beams that criss-cross the room. Stairs here down to an unexplored basement room that sounded packed. A dull easy listening soundtrack that turned up the occasional welcome surprise chugged away in the background and there was a decent crowd in the rear room, although the conservatory, garden and bar areas were only sparsely populated. On the bar, four handpulls offered St Austell Tribute and Proper Job plus Bath Gem, with Bath Prophecy having just been taken off. I ordered a pint of Proper Job and was given a cloudy short measure by the dithering barman, although his colleague seemed a lot more with it and topped my pint up without me having to ask. This is the sort of pub I don’t mind coming to with friends or family who aren’t big pub-goers, as its location gives it a bit of ‘wow’ factor, but as somewhere to just come for a quick pint or two, I didn’t feel it really worked all that well, with the modern decor and food-led feel acting at odds with the desire for a comfy spot to enjoy some well-kept beer. I’m glad I stopped by here, but can’t imagine a return without taking advantage of the food or garden.

Decent St Austells Inn on the River Exe, just out of town. Four real ales on, including an unexpected Hicks ESB. Mainly setup for dining but the beer was good and the staff all had jaunty, nautical striped uniforms on.

A very large pub spread across two levels in a pleasant spot alongside the river and overlooking the weir, it looks to be a fairly modern building, or if not then extensively renovated. The upper level consists includes a conservatory like extension to make the most of the views, although with light painted wood panelling on the roof so it doesn’t get to hot. The lower level leads out to a terraced area alongside the river and this looked to be a pleasant spot. Décor wise, there is a wood strip floor and much exposed brickwork and elsewhere there is terracotta paintwork and some wood panelling. There was plenty of woodwork including beams on the ceiling, although this all looked to be fairly modern. There was a bread oven behind the bar, although again, whether this is an original feature or not, I wouldn’t like to say. A couple of snug type areas offer more relaxing seating with low sofa’s or armchairs, but overall you get the feeling that the pub concentrates on the dining market. The menu offered a decent looking selection of pub grub dishes such as Fish & Chips, Scampi & Chips, Burger, etc., and these were mostly priced around the £10/£11 mark. There was also a specials board and many of these offered fish options. We went for the Cajun Chicken which came deep fried and was served with fries and a salad. It was a decent enough dish, but looked rather mass produced and came with a very runny barbecue sauce served in one of those small paper cups that collapse as soon as you try and move it. Less successful was a Butternut Squash Risotto which was a very small portion, really more of a starter size, and I thought quite bland, although that is of course a matter of personal taste. At £11 this was well overpriced. As it happened the guy who collected the plates was presumably one of the managers, asked what we thought and was very apologetic. It transpired that the dish should have been about double the size that it was and should also have come with parmesan crisps, which the kitchen had apparently run out of. He did a good job of redeeming the situation by refunding half the cost, and in light of that I would be happy to give them the benefit of the doubt and go back to try something else. But of course it shouldn’t really have come out like that in the first place, and had one of the young waitresses collected our dishes I suspect we may not have had such a satisfactory response. Beers on tap were all from St. Austell with their Tribute, Proper Job, Liquid Sunshine and Dartmoor Best. Ciders were Strongbow and Cornish Rattler, of both the original and pear varieties.

A St Austell pub, advertised inside as a winner of their ‘turnaround’ award. This is a converted mill as the name suggests. The two-level interior décor is wood and exposed brick, with a conservatory-style dining room upstairs which contains an open log fire in the centre. Dining is pushed quite heavily but there’s plenty of room for drinkers too. Star of the show is the outside balcony and landscaped gardens overlooking the river Exe and canal. Four pumps, three from the St Austell stable plus a guest from Dartmoor. The pair I tried were in good nick, though they do use sparklers which I think rather takes the edge off a bit. As mentioned elsewhere, it’s a bit corporate in feel. Not a bad stop, I imagine it’s an extremely good location for a good summer beer.