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Spice Island Inn, Old Portsmouth
Sir Walter Raleigh unloaded Britain's first potatoes and tobacco on Spice Island in the late 1500s.
The name is derived from spices sourced from Jamaica. But this inn, previously three 1700s smugglers' pubs, has also been known as the Coal Exchange, the Union Tavern, the Jolly Sailor and the Lone Yachtsman (after greengrocer and round-the-world sailor Alec Rose).
Today it's a rather benign, anywheresville place with tourism in mind. There are unusual full frontal views of passing Isle of Wight ferries, but its interior is an undistinguished copycat of most large modern pubs with long bar, tongue and groove panelling, a mass of dining tables and a few fruit machines. And it was virtually empty the Saturday I visited.
The attractively-designed large menu with modern font lulls you into a misplaced sense of security. Suffolk-based Greene King's pub marketing is not subtle. Regional areas are highlighted to give you the idea that there's a lot of careful sourcing, with West Country whitebait, Norfolk outdoor bred pork steak, Suffolk sausages, West Country smoked haddock and cheddar fishcake and Chiltern-cured ham and eggs amongst many other dishes.
Come here too for burgers; fish and chips; lasagne; steak and chips; curry of the day; peppered mushroom suet pudding; lamb shank; prawn cocktail; rustic deli board; sandwiches; oven-baked jacket potatoes. The list is around 45 dishes, not including a specials' board. I sense kitchen overload here – and a lot of ready-made meals?
Ordering at the bar armed with a table number is another fashionable 'let customers work at it' method. My order was a trendy black pudding and bacon lardon salad (3.79), trad breaded plaice with chips and peas (8.75) and a glass of South African Sauvignon blanc, a total of over 16.
The salad was a misery, the pudding undercooked, the few bacon strips tough, the elderly leaves swamped in cheap balsamic.
The same lack of culinary skills showed with the plaice. Granted, the fish wasn't over- cooked, the breaded carapace adding a good crunch.
The chips and peas I'd ordered had morphed into boiled potatoes and a poorly-dressed salad. The chef had not checked to see if the potatoes were cooked before sending them out – they were all hard as walnuts.
In these straitened pub times, taking the eye off the ball is folly. Kitchens need to cook not by numbers but with understanding and heart. A simple knife test would have done the job with those potatoes.
Service was good by some, lackadaisical by others (reading the TV listings while customers wait is never a smart move).
Sir Walter Raleigh was sent to the Tower despite his remarkable deeds. No such overkill is needed here, but why not get a quality ball rolling in this prime spicy spot?
Spice Island Inn, 1 Bath Square, Portsmouth PO1 2JL. (023) 9287 0543.
Open: 11am–11pm every day apart from Sunday (12 – 10.30 pm).
Food: **
Service: ***
Atmosphere: ***
Disabled access: Good
How to get there: Follow the signs to Old Portsmouth along the High Street and Broad Street to Bath Square. Parking in public car park opposite.
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Weather for Portsmouth
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 15 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 15 C to 23 C
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