The Hub, Liverpool

Photo by deltrems

We were over in Liverpool meeting up with family who were visiting and needed somewhere child-friendly to eat.

We stumbled on The Hub when wandering in town and I realised that I had seen it in the Good Beer Guide. It was therefore essential I popped in to have a look. It defines itself as an Alehouse & Kitchen, which is a pub that does food to you and me. When you enter you’re met by someone desperate to take money from you for food and seemed mildly disappointed when we asked if it was OK to sit on the very high chairs at the extremely high bar to have a couple of drinks. It’s a big noisy room but the atmosphere was friendly.

They have a couple of house beers, made by local a local brewery and others from local craft breweries and the ones we tried were excellent.

As time was pushing on we agreed to meet the rest of the family in the pub for lunch. The lunch menu looked good and there was a children’s menu as well which would hopefully keep them happy.

Naturally, I went for the ‘cask ale battered haddock, proper chips, mushy peas, tartare sauce’ for £9.95.

The fish was fresh, clean tasting and flavoursome but unfortunately the batter was too gloopy in texture and not crisp enough, although the taste was good.

The chips were proper and oddly too crisp as they’d been overcooked and had a very ordinary taste. The children loved them though. In contrast, the mushy peas had a good depth of flavour, good deep green colour and my only problem was that I wished I’d had a bigger portion.

In terms of the extras, I did have a good wedge of lemon and a swish, or should it be a swoosh, of tartare. I don’t mind fancy things but if you’re trying to do proper fish and chips then the addition of a tartare swoosh seems like stuff and nonsense.

We were sitting right in the middle of the restaurant with loud conversation all around us and the waiting staff had to struggle past us to get to other tables with food. They managed to make a mess of all the other meals that were brought to the table e.g. a children’s pasta with tomato sauce that was too peppery for almost any human being and staff  just didn’t care in the slightest how bad it was. Some of the most uncaring staff I’ve ever come across in an ‘alehouse & kitchen’. I wasn’t in an alehouse or a kitchen. Just a noisy pub which isn’t as good as they think it is.

I won’t be rushing back.