Half roast redemption on a Sunday afternoon

I do not have happy memories of this hostelry. These mostly centre around being dragged in here various Saturday nights in the 1990s – when, of course, it was not Fishers at all but Wall Street – by various more youthful minded members of my old drinking cohort tired of the spit and sawdust outfit we generally favoured.

Cue an unspecified period of time being jostled this way and that, pint – for which had paid paying well over the odds – clutched tight chest, crushedsomewhere in one of the dense knots of humanity then prone to gathering there prior to a similarly cramped bop in Tokyo Jo’s (while we scuttled off to The Warehouse).

For all I know still do (seldom cross the Flag Market on such rare excursions today), but happily there was ample room to stand, walk, raise a glass to one’s mouth – even, incredibly, take a seat.

Not that lack of space was the sum of my fears over entering the city centre’s most prominent pub, and former Nat West bank.

The main motive of Sunday’s visit was to grab a drink and a bite to eat before a concert at the nearby Guild Hall, and let’s just say my previous culinary experiences were nothing much to write home about.

Put it this way, you don’t need to be servedmany tuna melts with a frozen core to think twice about venturing further into the menu.

In the event all my fears were allayed. Sunday dinner fortwo with two drinks (one soft) for £13 or thereabouts is more than fair, and the house red in question was easy enough drinking.

The food was good too. You can’t knock a half-roast chicken and decent trimmings (although the Yorkshire Pudding tasted like sweet cake) for four quid a head, and a jug of gravy on the side is my idea of ticking the box.

The ambience is as aircraft hangar like as ever – this is a truly vast pub – but the decor is new and clean and the booths – as envied from the swaying ruck by the bar way back when (and probably this coming Saturday circa 10pm) were just as comfortable as I had always imagined.