Harbour House, Bristol: ‘Just a delightful place to be’ – restaurant review

The fish is excellent and all things are shipshape and Bristol fashion on the edge of the Floating Harbour

Harbour House, The Grove, Bristol BS1 4RB. (0117 925 1212). Snacks and starters £4-£9, mains £11-£22, desserts £4-£7.50, wines from £21

For years it was the Bristol restaurant I only ever passed on the way to somewhere else. I was always responding instead to the beguiling call of the city’s seemingly endless stream of new and diverting eating options; to the promise of handmade pastas, or ripe stews drawing on French country cooking traditions, as if summoning the ghost of Bristol’s most beloved culinary son, Keith Floyd. I liked the look of the place, hunkered down there on the edge of Bristol’s Floating Harbour, but nothing made me think I should bother to stop.