Harbour Hub, Harbour Inlet: ‘The punchline is the fish and chips’ – restaurant review

You couldn’t ask for a much more textbook Bristol harbourside scene; the evening sun reflecting off the water, balloons in the sky and a nearby speaker belting out feel-good tunes.

Harbour Hub has docked in one of the most frequented spots in Bristol during the summer months – overlooking the Floating Harbour in the arched brick building that until recently housed Spoke & Stringer.

Being from the same team behind Rock Salt, current record holders for the world’s largest negroni, I had high hopes for the cocktail menu. Harbour Hub has been proudly sporting their frozen pina colada across Instagram, but as margaritas are my favourite way to establish a benchmark for a cocktail menu I went for their basil-infused version (£9.50).

The brick of an ice cube keeping it cold was an excellent sign – nothing worse than a cocktail diluted enough to make you reminisce about the days of drinking vodka with orange squash.

A margarita is my go-to cocktail and this one was pretty good.

The basil flavour was understated but pleasant, although it was a little sweet for my taste. No complaints though, I’d happily drink it again. Bristol24/7 reporter Betty Woolerton very much enjoyed her aperol spritz (£10). So far, so good.

Drinks make up about 75 per cent of the menu at Harbour Hub and seemingly about 75 per cent of the effort as well – the food told a different story.

The menu reads as if Pantone had made their colour of the year beige. Fish and chips (£14.50) is the only full sized dish – no main vegetarian or vegan option which is a missed trick in a city like Bristol if you ask me. The light bites include loaded fries (£6), fries (£4), hummus (£6), chilli chicken bites (£7), vegetable spring rolls (£6), crispy cauliflower (£6) and chicken caesar salad (£9).

We ordered the fish and chips, chicken, cauliflower and a caesar salad as a peace offering to the impending deep fried heart attack.

Chicken caesar salad is not known for its fat-busting superfood content at the best of times, but this arrived almost as beige as everything else. What little greenery there was was buried beneath a pile of parmesan shavings and suspiciously small and uniform croutons. Good quality parmesan I must add, or at least it would have been if it hadn’t been left out to dry so much that it was almost bendy. As for the rest of it – had it been recently relieved of its supermarket packaging? Who knows. It was certainly suitably devoid of personality.

Somewhat aptly this salad gave me very beach-bar menu vibes.

The sweet chilli chicken was much less beige than I was expecting, at least in terms of colour. The Rock Salt influence was very apparent here, they managed the claggy, tangy sweetness of a takeaway Hong Kong sweet and sour style chicken very well. A dish that I know and love, but not one I had come here to eat. I did honestly enjoy the first few mouthfuls and the warming kick of chilli until the dryness started to set in. After that it became a real jaw workout – you’d have to be several pina coladas in to order this again.

Despite being coated in sauce the chicken was desperately dry.

As for the cauliflower – I was whelmed. Not over, not under – smack bang in the middle. This cauliflower seemed the distant cousin of the Sichuan-fried, sesame infused cauliflower that Seven Lucky Gods serve just over the water. Sadly this cousin is the one you’d find feeling sorry for itself in the corner at family gatherings, looking longingly over at its more successful relatives.

The cauliflower wasn’t bad, but I’ve had much better.

The punchline to this joke is the fish and chips. I was most intrigued to see if our portion would arrive as languishing in grease as Mark Taylor’s had last week, and lo and behold it did. Almost enough to create an infinity pool style effect with the river in the background – most picturesque. Although it riles some, I personally don’t have a problem with serving food on a chopping board mainly because it reminds me of the greatest Come Dine With Me moment in TV history.

The chips were okay….

Once again, I cannot tell you that the katsu curry sauce it came with isn’t homemade. If it is, then the team here really ought to enter it on Snackmasters (someone call Jayde Adams!), as they’ve managed to recreate instant chip shop curry sauce masterfully. I loved it, in the same way that I love ordering the exact same thing from a kebab van at 3am.

The necessity of the sauce makes a lot more sense when you try the fish. The batter bends uneasily under the pressure of a knife – no snap or crackle here folks. The fish it hides might as well have spent all day in the fryer it is so overcooked. Despite this, by some miracle, the batter isn’t actually cooked all the way through, leaving a kind of sticky residue sealing the miserable package together.

Is anyone able to identify the sludge on the right-hand side?

The peas – at this point the only green thing on the table other than my margarita – might well have begged for an infusion of lemon, mint or garlic whilst they were being mushed but alas, their prayers were not answered.

This bruised mint had been added as a last minute apology to the peas.

It does make me a tad disheartened that the tourists this place is bound to draw in by the dozen will think that this is Bristol’s answer to fish and chips. May our collective prayers be enough to inspire them to jump on the ferry across the harbour to Salt and Malt, where they’ll have the chance to try something by the same name but in an entirely different league.

But you know what? You should visit Harbour Hub. Visit for the view and the cocktails and the friendly service. When you’ve had a few drinks, order the chips with the fantastically familiar curry sauce. Just remember to think twice when they ask if you want anything else to eat.

Harbour Hub, 1-3 Lower Ground Floor, Purifier house, Lime Kiln Rd, BS1 5AU

www.instagram.com/harbourhubbristol/

All photos: Meg Houghton-Gilmour

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