The Royal Oak, Bristol

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Blackthorn _ left this review about The Royal Oak

A good sized pub in the centre of the High Street, it is famous locally as the venue that the Wurzels used to record their debut album back in the 60’s. The pub has a good sized beer garden which is a pleasant spot in the warmer weather and usefully there is a serving hatch directly from the garden in to the bar.

The pub has recently been refurbished, although apart from a liberal coating of paint over every available surface (including the exposed stone work which seems a bit of a shame) little seems to have changed. Flooring is a mixture of slate tiles by the bar and carpet, and the overall look is obviously supposed to be contemporary although I’m not sure that really fits with the style of the building. Paintwork is a mixture of cream and battleship grey along with some wallpaper in places. What might be described as a snug area is at the front, and there is some distressed wood panelling on the wall here which along with a copper clock gives something of a nautical feel. Various old photographs of the locale were on the wall and a couple of plasma screens were showing a football match, at a volume that was slightly louder than necessary I thought.

The menu looked to offer a standard selection of pub grub dishes with options such as scampi and chips, ham egg and chips, fish & chips, chicken tikka masala, etc., and these were mostly priced around the £6/£7 mark. A specials board added options such as a chicken chorizo burger, fish pie or pork belly for a couple of pounds more.

On the beer front, first impressions were encouraging with both a “cask ales” and a “craft ales” board behind the bar listing five choices apiece. Closer inspection though revealed that the cask ales board included three ciders and a “coming soon” whilst the craft ales board included yet another cider, a rather uninspiring Greene King IPA and something called This is Lager. So actually a rather disappointing selection consisting of just the aforementioned IPA and Doom Bar. Ciders though did fare much better with Thatcher’s Gold, Old Rascal, Blackthorn, Thatcher’s Heritage, Symonds Founders Reserve and Old Rosie.

On 31^st December 2015 - rating: 6
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