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Anyone who can't find food or drink in Bath to suit their pocket, appetite, or style, either isn't trying or has received bad advice. Ranging from the pair of Michelin starred restaurants; Lettonie with two stars and accommodation on the Kelston Road, and the rather less formal single starred Moody Goose in Kingsmead Square, the choice runs all the way to a myriad of fast food joints. Schwartz Bros takeaway in Walcot Street features funky music and the best burgers in Bath (Bath Chronicle survey). Try their garlic & mayo.
With more eateries here than you can shake a baguette at, and the attractive River Avon winding through town, visitors and residents alike are amazed that it's almost impossible to eat or drink by the riverside other than at the small Riverside Café to the side of Pulteney Bridge. Vegetarian and licensed to serve alcohol, there are outside tables here with good views but no evening opening. If you can find your way to Forester Road in Bathwick the unpretentious Bathwick Boatman serves straightforward food at reasonable prices. Set above the Victorian boathouse this is an ideal spot where you can watch inexperienced trippers try their hand on punts and skiffs while you dine safely ashore. Schemes to develop the riverside crop up as regularly as tourist buses but as the Sunday Times commented last year (with reference to Bath Rugby's plans to rebuild the riverbank stand to include a restaurant and bar), "In Bath it usually takes three years to get permission to erect a deck chair, so don't hold your breath."
Lunch, as ever, is the time to find value for money at the top end of the market as many restaurant prices are cut to approaching half of the evening cost. However, so many restaurants around means that prices are invariably competitive, though Tilley's, just below the Abbey, keeps costs down and quality up by only serving starter portions and house wines. Most bars and pubs serve food too but for anyone who really appreciates their tipple Bath is unusually bountiful. Real ales abound, especially if you ignore the obvious gin palaces in the city centre. As those mirrored monstrosities with dress codes, colored lights, and bouncers are easy to find I'll point you in the direction of the real pubs, with real character, frequented by real people.
Starting in the centre, Bath's smallest pub, the cosy Coeur de Lyon (pictured above) is definitely worth a visit, as is its sister pub the Old Green Tree - a paneled hideaway near to the Post Office. Both serve imaginative beers and snacks but keep evenings food free. If you enjoy music whilst imbibing there's not a night in the week when free music isn't supplied somewhere. The best source of information on pub music is listed under 'Gigs' in the Bath Chronicle - up to a dozen pubs are featured on Saturday nights, and if quiet drinking is your scene this will indicate places to avoid. Although it's basically a good class restaurant, the cosmopolitan Moon and Sixpence has a comfortable bar area, some seriously good wines by the glass, and what one of its aficionados describes as, "wall to wall crumpet". What on earth can he mean?
Behind the Theatre Royal is the small but select Raincheck Bar, which has its adherents among the cognoscenti of Bath, of whom I'm not one, but the regulars assure me that they are all terribly nice people. Serious real ale drinkers will welcome the good news that Bath's best-preserved pub, The Star, opposite the Paragon Crescent, has just been taken over by the boss of Abbey Ales. Alan Morgan, who started Bath's first brewery in 40 years, has bought the much-loved pub, which will now sell Abbey Ales as well as the Bass beer for which it was renowned. Late night drinkers are catered to by The Huntsman on Bog Island which somehow has wrangled a late night licence until 2a every morning.
If this hasn't pointed you in the right direction then just take a few steps beyond the obvious city centre bars and you'll find a wealth of good pubs and good people. Try it. You'll probably like it and want to stay longer, like the rest of us.
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