The Oak House, Axbridge

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Blackthorn _ left this review about The Oak House

A traditional looking pub on the edge of this very attractive square, I have always thought of it as more of a hotel and restaurant than your traditional pub, and have thus neglected to visit previously. Whilst that is true to an extent, there is nonetheless a dedicated bar area although it did appear that most punters were residents and/or diners on a recent mid-week visit.

There are two bars at the front of the pub, with the larger one to the right being a mix of contemporary and traditional in terms of appearance. There was quite a bit of exposed stone wall, although this looked to be quite modern, or at least cleaned up and repointed. This had been covered with plasterwork in places and there were some quite modern oak beams on the ceiling. A TV was up on the wall, but this was not in use on our visit. Wooden laminate flooring was laid throughout, and the smaller snug to the left was perhaps a little more traditional with old black beams on the ceiling and some wood panelling on the lower part of the walls that had been painted in battleship grey. A few pictures were dotted around the walls, including an old black and white photograph of the village square. Seating was a mixture of comfy old sofa’s and chunky wooden tables and chairs. Beyond this at the rear was a small sitting area which was certainly the oldest part of the pub in terms of décor, and a real log fire was blazing away. Beyond this again was a surprisingly spacious restaurant, again quite contemporary in appearance.

The bar menu offered a concise selection of pub grub dishes and there was also an a la carte menu, although again, the choice here was reasonably limited. We opted for fish & chips and a chicken and bacon linguine from the bar menu, and whilst these were perfectly adequate I thought they were rather over priced at £11.95, especially for the fish which was quite a small portion size.

Beers on tap were Spun Gold and Fallen Tree from the Twisted Oak brewery, whilst the ciders were Thatcher’s Haze and Old Rascal. All in all, there was nothing really wrong with this pub, the staff were friendly and in some ways it might be a nice relaxed spot to while away a Sunday afternoon, but perhaps because of the lacklustre food or the fact that it hasn’t got a particularly “pubby” feel to it, it didn’t really do it for me.

On 24^th March 2017 - rating: 6
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