Newly opened where Mezz Bar once was, the Bellevue Bar is aiming to showcase good beer and good food, in a modern pub atmosphere. It retains much of the physical layout of the previous place, and there’s still a heavy emphasis on wood, but it has elevated itself a peg or two to exude understated stylishness.
Exterior
On my visit, the kitchen were having a few problems. They’d just had a new fridge installed, the day before, and it had failed overnight. This severely dented their range of options.
The woman behind the bar didn’t really handle things that well. Firstly, she said that the meat fridge had failed. Fair enough, I thought – I’ll go for the soup. Nope – no soup. Wild mushroom risotto? Nope – no risotto. So, what was on offer? Burgers or chicken. So, meat. Ah, but from the other fridge, which didn’t fail. Clear as mud.
Interior
I don’t mind when places are having a bad day, but they really needed to make things a good deal clearer, in terms of what was available. From this point on, though, everything clicked in to gear, and ran much more smoothly.
I’d eventually opted for the burger, which came on some called a “home made milk dough bun”, which sounded intriguing. It was served with frites. As you can gather from the descriptions, the Bellevue is playing in gastropub territory. I’m not terribly fond of the term, as I find it can be used to mean any number of things, but you get the general idea.
The dish soon arrived and it looked extremely good. The burger was of the tower variety, firmly in flip-top head or knife and fork territory. The frites were served in a neat little basket. They looked great.
Burger and frites
The burger had a good char to it, but upon cutting in it looked very much like I was about to experience disappointing crumbly leanness. Appearances can sometimes be deceiving though, as while the texture was a little crumbly, there was excellent moisture. It wasn’t the most flavour packed beef in history, but the nicely charred exterior and piquant relish more than made up for that. The bun was a little too dense, for me, but I liked the idea and it can be refined, in due course.
The frites were just as good as they looked, and right up there with the chunky chips I had at The Pantry for the best I’ve been served, recently.
So overall, the food at the Bellevue was rather impressive. They have work to do on the service, as I think ordering at the bar doesn’t really work, particularly with the kind of menu they have, and the look and feel of the place, but that can develop in time. Their wine list looks ace, so I’ll need to return to have a dabble at that soon, too, and obviously it would be good to see what they’re capable of when the rest of their menu is available. So, my advice would be to pay this place a visit, soon.
Scores
Blythe scores the Bellevue Bar
4/5 for food
4/5 for presentation
3/5 for service
3.5/5 for setting
giving an overall 14.5/20
Today’s quester was: Blythe
I ate: Bellevue burger in milk dough bun with relish and frites
I drank: sparkly water
I wore: lilac shirt
Total bill: £10.45
