Horts
49 Broad Street, Bristol,BS1 2EP
Tel: 0117 925 2520
Link

Good place in Bristol city centre to meet for a drink. There are lots of areas where different sized groups can assemble and chat while being part of, but separate from, the general crowd. That said, early evening on a summer Saturday was pretty quiet. Horts, which is run by Young's brewery, has an enormous floor area but is better laid out than the similar sized Wetherspoons pubs.
All the 13 wines available are served by two sizes of glass or bottle; even Champagne or Prosecco are available by the smaller sized glass. Feeling in a summery mood, I tried the Chilean Sauvignon Blanc, which made perfectly acceptable afternoon quaffing. Nick went for the South Australian Crystal Brook Shiraz which the menu describes as "robust, powerful and spicy" and was disappointed, finding it in his opinion none of these things. When offered a refill by a friend he absent mindedly said Yes, please but then wished he'd tried the Rioja Crianza. Drinks prices seemed a little on the high side but I don't know what's average for central Bristol.
The food menu offers a good variety of pub dishes, although no steak, only burgers, and the platters for two to share looked interesting, but we didn't eat at Horts, moving on to Europa () for dinner.
The loos upstairs were clean and decorated a relaxing shade of green and got extra brownie points in my book for having paper towels instead of ghastly air dryers.
And if you're wondering as I was about the strange name of "Horts", (I had to look it up) it was named after the eighteenth century essayist and bon viveur Arthur Hort, who was born in Broad Street.
August 2009