The Taproom, Swansea

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Pub SignMan left this review about Cakes & Ale

Set slightly back from the main seafront road through The Mumbles, this is a popular café style bar set in a single room, shop converted premises. The room has nice modern herringbone flooring and walls with a mix of exposed brickwork, lemon yellow paintwork and rustic wood panelling. Plush banquettes with tartan upholstery run down the side walls, supplemented by some sturdy pub chairs and a few high stools along drinking ledges in the front windows. One of these windows had been smashed, along with the window in the front door, resulting in it being boarded up, which reduced the amount of natural light coming into the room. An apologetic waiter explained that they’d not been able to fix it due to shortages in the glazing industry. The walls were decorated with a nice shelving unit filled with exotic looking spirit bottles, whilst elsewhere there was a collection of black and white photos of Muhammed Ali, various mirrors, a few local photographs and a specials board. The servery is to the rear of the room and has a wood plank and white tile counter that follows an odd zig-zag line, with a part tile, part mirror bar back and a TV screen above showing promotional material. Pop tunes were playing quite loudly, but we did find ourselves sat under one of the speakers, so maybe that wasn’t everyone’s experience. They have somehow managed to find enough space for a pavement seating area with astro-turf flooring and high planters acting as screens from the road, but there is no shelter, so these seats remained empty on a typically wet Swansea afternoon.
Lots of people seemed to be stopping of here for a coffee or food, but that didn’t seem to detract from a lively pub-feel, aided by a packed house that saw us nab the only remaining seats upon our arrival. They have two handpulls on the bar and these were dispensing Gower Gold and Glamorgan Jemima’s Pitchfork, the latter of which I tried and thought was in reasonable shape, if not the most exciting of beers. We also had some of their delicious looking cake, which was as tasty as we’d hoped it would be and not unreasonably priced.
This is an interesting little place that feels like the ideal sort of venue for this popular part of town. It’s able to cope with a wide range of customer needs and doesn’t seem to compromise too much on its pubby feel, although there’s no getting away from the fact that the beer is far from the primary concern here. Worth checking out once you’ve exhausted the area’s stronger pub options.

On 14^th January 2022 - rating: 6
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