The Pumphouse

We had Sunday lunch here on the mezzanine area of the restaurant. Very pleasant atmosphere and good service — nice menu with plenty of choice not just Sunday roast.

The Pumphouse is one of my favourite pubs to sit outside and have a couple of drinks and bar snacks.
It is just a little bit far for me to trek to make it a regular, but I don’t think I’d appreciate it as much if I went there all the time. So it’s a nice little treat when I do finally get go there: It’s definitely worth the journey!
The Only thing really letting The Pumphouse down is the very limited food menu for eating outside. It would be great to have a proper pub lunch and pint.
The riverside setting, bath ales and big areas for groups to sit outside more than makes up for it though! But they’d have a an extra star is the outside menu was bigger!

I have always really enjoyed the food at the pump house but today it just wasn’t quite there, we hadn’t booked and they managed to squeeze us in for Sunday lunch so I was grateful for that but they didn’t have any high chairs left so we had to wrangle a 14 month old baby whilst eating our lunch which wasn’t the fault of anyone at the restaurant and may have slightly skewed my overall enjoyment.
The bread we had to start was really delicious and the oil and balsamic was obviously good quality. My partner had pork and I had lamb, both came with potato anna as opposed to roast spuds which I must say I don’t agree with, if you are having a roast dinner you should have roast potatoes end of!!! We didn’t realise this when we ordered and asked if we could get a couple of extra roast spuds for little one, the waitress said she would «try», we offered to pay for them but none turned up, most places you go to are really flexible with stuff like that especially for kids.
I must say that I did see another table with 2 little girls of school age and the waiter had lovely bright plastic plates and cutlery and were asking the girls what colour they would like and they seemed to really like it and I thought that was a nice touch, we weren’t offered anything like that though.
My lamb was ok but it was well done and I prefer slightly pink lamb, it did come with salsa verde though which is a big favourite of mine.
The veg were really good, beetroot, cauli flower cheese, carrots and cabbage, all cooked well and nicely seasoned.
There was no salt or pepper on the table and we weren’t offered any condiments, my husband loves mustard but he had to ask for it and was then given whole grain mustard when he wanted English, again this is something I thought they would have asked.
All in all the food was good, I couldn’t say it wasn’t but the service could have been better and for the price you pay (it’s not cheap) you expect the get the whole shebang !

The Pumphouse is a bit swanky for a pub. Every single bar maid I’ve seen there has been both blonde and stunning. The décor matches, being light, airy, and expensive looking. You feel a bit like you’re drinking at an up-​market restaurant waiting to be seated, rather than drinking in a pub. Nothing wrong with this of course — I don’t know of any rule that says a pub has to be cheap and grotty looking. Although it’s hardly grotty, the Nova Scotia over the bridge is a bit more of a traditional pub, if that’s what
The crowd it attracts is similarly moneyed up. Expect a more middle aged clientèle than you’ll usually find. As this place is right on the harbourside I suspect this is where the owners of all the yachts parked up nearby.
The Pumphouse (so called because the building used to house the harbour’s pumps) is more pleasant for its softer chairs and natural light, but less of a proper pub because of it.