This review appears in the October edition of Bite Magazine, and can be found online here.
Heading into The Waterline with mum on an August Saturday night, it was quickly apparent how well it would fit with this month’s theme of celebrating all that is retro. Joni Mitchell and The Rolling Stones were on the hi-fidelity sound system, ok, it was probably an iPod, but I can pretend it was vinyl and we were pre-metric system. The pub’s theme is ‘olde nautical’, and we settled in for a night of comforting eats and drinks by the shore.
With an absence of Mateus on the wine list, instead we got into the groove with a bottle of fresh Italian rosé (£14.29) to sip on whilst checking out the menu. The Waterline is part of the Belhaven stable of pubs, however with several touches they manage to avoid going down the ‘carbon copy’ route when it comes to the food offer. Service is friendly, and the team are evidently (and as it turns out, rightly) proud of their pub’s fare.
I started with garlic mushrooms (starters £3.99) which are about as retro as a dish can get. Far from the sometimes soggy, sad little fungi, here were sautéed mushrooms with a firm texture, and a creamy peppered garlic sauce with parsley. A fair kick of the ol’ garlic made this a good one to share with dining partners, and the toasted ciabatta a reminder we were in the 21st Century. Mum had black pudding -served crispy as requested- with a tomato chutney, and accompanied by rocket salad. The chutney provided a nice sweetness to the savoury black pudding.
We picked main courses so ‘classic-British’ as to be appropriately clichéd; chicken pie (£7.99) for me, and fish ‘n’ chips for ma (£8.49). My choice was hearty chicken and leek stew with chunky pieces of white meat under a puff pastry dome. The server beat me to choosing which pun to use when mum’s huge haddock arrived. ‘It’s a whale’, she gleefully stated. Ma is an old-school fish lover, and made quick work of her piscine pal. Accompanying chips were good rustic style, but the show-stoppers were onion rings so good they’d be worth crossing town for.
Desserts were functional. Chocolate fudge cake and sticky toffee pudding (£3.99 each); however the accompanying custard evoked a perfectly nostalgic memory of school dinners. A fitting end to our night!
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