The Pump House, Hotwells: 'Some 150 years after it was built, it houses some of the best pub food in the city

Celebrating a harbourside pub on the weekend of the harbour festival

It felt very appropriate to have dinner in The Pump House on the weekend of the festival that celebrates Bristol’s harbourside. A grade II listed building, it was built to house the hydraulic pump that powered many of the moving bridges and locks around the harbour. Some 150 years later it houses some of the best pub food in the city.

This year Bristol’s Harbour Festival collided in a blaze of fishy glory with the inaugural Bristol Seafood Week; in which various restaurants hosted events, featured special dishes or ran whole tasting menus.

The Pump House was celebrating Bristol Seafood Week with a barbecue in collaboration with Conscious Fish Company, which meant we had not one but two menus to choose from.

Given how brilliant the food is, it seems absolutely mad that four years ago chef-owner Toby Gritten was considering throwing in the towel. Post lockdown one, Toby had turned The Pump House into a deli, bar and kitchen in a desperate bid to survive. He’d bid farewell to one of his three pubs already, and would soon sell the other in order to focus solely on The Pump House.

It must be an exceptionally difficult decision to scale back your business like that. But for what it’s worth the food confirms Toby made the right decision.

My only possible criticism of this is that the quenelle of butter should be twice the size

This is going to sound like an odd analogy but bear with me. My sister once said to me that when they talked about Jesus feeding the five thousand in her rather religious primary school, it always made her hungry. She’s a girl after my own heart, or more accurately, stomach.

Little Beth sat cross-legged in a school hall envisaging this God-sent bread as being perfect; just-warm with a spring in its step and a golden crust so perfect it would make modern bakers cry.

I should take her to the Pump House, where I think they have come as close as is possible to achieving this biblical bread. With their house-churned cultured butter spread on thick, it was simply the best bread and butter (£8.50) I’ve had in years.

The service was spread much thinner. Outside on the terrace groups of sunshine revellers amassed for after work drinks, the seafood barbecue or to escape the throes of the harbour festival. The staff struggled to keep up. Though very friendly when they did appear, dishes were forgotten, cutlery was difficult to come by and plates were left to pile up before being whisked away.

The Pump House in no spring chicken but this plate of food is

But the food was more than worth slightly frustrating service. The barbecued spring chicken with caesar salad (£21) was doused luxuriously in thick anchovy-ridden dressing and studded with pancetta. Paired with a big bowl of fries (£4) it was a winning combination; the chicken plump and lightly smokey from the flames of the barbecue.

Lamb sweetbreads with chicken wings, minted peas and morels (£11.50) reminded me fondly of a dish I had years ago in the Pony Bistro on North Street. It’s no wonder really, given Toby’s friendship and regular collaborations with the Pony’s Josh Eggleton. It’s seriously elevated pub food, arguably transcending the category entirely.

Monkfish is ugly while alive and doesn’t look much better dead, but it tasted excellent

From the seafood barbecue menu, two half shell Brixham scallops (£4 each) and monkfish tail (£20). Both were so fresh that visitors to the area might have been mistaken for thinking they’d been plucked out the Bristol Channel. Those of us that live here know well that as much as our scenic harbourside is worth celebrating, you wouldn’t go near anything that had been fished out of those waters. The two fellas we saw jumping in on our way over the bridge were taking their life into their hands.

Both fish dishes were beautifully cooked and swimming in lemon butter and rich masala sauces respectively; ideal for mopping with the last hard-won piece of that glorious bread.

Where’s the Bristol roe-ing club at?

Despite the alluring call of sticky toffee pudding, we decided that dessert was a write-off, mainly because we’d be waiting another hour. And after all, we had a drum and bass rave on historic ship The Balmoral across the water to get to.

The Pump House has been an integral part of Bristol’s harbourside since the days of Queen Victoria. Though its function these days is much less about powering locks and bridges and much more about providing great food, it is a cherished spot for harbourside wanderers that has stood the test of time.

Those people looking at the menu are about to make a good decision

All words and photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour

The Pump House, Merchants Rd, Hotwells, BS8 4PZ

---

Read next:

---