The Greenwich, Southsea

A hipstery place with the associated pretensions (a wall made of suitcases, anyone?). Floor to ceiling glass frontage, a large front bar and a bit at the back. Some keg and two ales - one house beer of unknown provenance and a pretty awful Irving Frigate, murky with yeast babies (NBSS 1.5). No other customers and it wasn’t hard to see why. Worst pub of the day - just.

The Belle Isle is a long and thin bar with seating at the front and rear which is separated by the bar counter which is found centrally on the left wall. A premium keg range was available alongside Guinness during my recent Friday afternoon visit. The bar also supports two hand pumps that were drawing Frigate from the local Irving Brewery and Belle Isle Light Ale which is reported to be Sharp’s Cornish Coaster. Food is advertised as being available, but I didn’t spot any menus. I didn’t note any televisions, but there was some background music playing. It was a lovely sunny day when I visited so the frontage had been opened onto some café tables located on the pavement outside.

Not a pub but a restaurant/café/bar type of thing serving a hotchpotch of global food and which I only entered as part of a group. Had a half of something unmemorable called Frigate at £2.00 a half. For me, 'frigate' is the operative word.

Part of a small chain operating bars in Chichester and here in Southsea, the Belle Isle is a modern bar with a nice mix of dining and drinking trade. You enter into a fairly large, open plan space, broken up in places by short sections of wall, pillars and shelving units. There is a good mix of seating throughout this space, including comfy lounge furniture, high tables and stools and plenty of regular tables and chairs. The bar is tucked away a little towards the rear on the left hand wall. The pub narrows significantly here, with some decent banquette seating opposite, but it does fell like a bit of a pinch point before opening out again to a small rear space that felt quite bland. The whole place is bare boarded with white walls decorated with various murals listing food options and other such practical details. This doesn't make for the most visually stimulating interior, but it was still a bright, clean space that seems well suited to those wanting to eat. The place was doing a roaring trade on a wet Saturday afternoon, including quite a lot of kids making plenty of noise in a room lacking in soft furnishings. There are four handpulls on the bar, three of which were in operation on this visit. I decided to try a pint of the Tiny Rebel Beat Box - a tasty APA that was served up in pretty good shape and at a nice cellar cool temperature. Most people here were eating and I think I only saw one other person ordering an ale throughout my stay, so I'm not sure how they fare on throughput - an issue their Chichester branch also seemed to have. This seemed like a decent enough bar, with an interesting selection of cask and keg beers and the sort of set-up that would appeal to a fairly wide range of customers. I probably timed my visit here badly, clashing with the weekend lunchtime crowd, and suspect I would've enjoyed my stay more in the evening, but I left with a generally favourable impression and would bear it in mind when in the area again.