Restaurant Review
Wavertree Town Hall
89 High Street, L15 8HF
By Robin Brown | Pub | £ |
First, a confession. I don’t rate Sunday lunches in pubs. Too much of the time they’re an excuse to send out cremated meats with a side serving of overcooked veg, Bisto and Aunt Bessie’s. Secondly, well, another confession. I loved Wavertree Town Hall in its former guise: a seriously impressive affair with superb European-influenced small plates, a welcoming team and a lovely ambiance. With that out of the way, I shall now commence my review of Wavertree Town Hall, recently reopened by the team behind city centre haunts like Abbey Road and Harrison’s Bar, who really know how to balance a match-day crowd with a neighbourhood pint and fish-finger butty.
First impressions are good. Some of the blingier trappings of the old town hall are gone and the place looks a bit more restrained now, although I kept expecting to see an AI artwork of a cow wearing a military uniform. Thankfully the two front rooms are largely untouched and still have the air of magnificence that befits the municipal trappings of the building. Draught Bass on tap caught my eye immediately, as did a large stag head mounted atop the hearth, to which I returned again and again, courtesy of my toddling daughter (“Deer! Deer!”). It is a fittingly stoic centrepiece for a building that still sports the Latin motto ‘Sub Umbra Floresco’ – “In the shade I flourish” – above its entrance; a nod to Wavertree’s long-lost independence from the city centre.
There is, as is the law these days, a Paul Curtis artwork – this one featuring George Harrison, who was born just down the road on Arnold Grove and whose parents registered his birth in this very building in 1943. Out the back, there is now a large wood panelled room featuring a second bar, darts lanes, a fruitie and about 47 large-screen televisions, a sensory overload that felt less a Grade II-listed building and more a wood panelled Currys showroom.
Resplendent with Toby jugs and old beer bottles, it has a whiff of the ‘pub-themed pub’ archetype that Rob Gutmann has so successfully exported around Liverpool. When we arrive, there are several families eating roast dinners while a few solitary men drink Madri and frown at their phones, occasionally popping over to be quizzed by Egyptian gods at a quid a pop or throw some arrows.
It’s a rather odd juxtaposition, as if the Town Hall is straddling its own former life and trying to blend in with the other pubs (hardy, surprisingly busy, lager) on Wavertree High Street. To the food. We were invited to try the Sunday lunches, so Sunday lunches we had, though the nippers also made inroads into a huge meat feast pizza (well-cooked, Neapolitan-style, cheap at £11) and hummus (one traditional, one spicy, loads of veg and bread, £7).
My 200-day aged, grain-fed Black Angus sirloin (£15) was pink, tender and delicious. Accompanying greens were crisp and juicy, a celeriac puree delightfully smooth. My wife had a nut roast (£15), which was OK, though there didn’t appear to be any nuts in it. Does that technically make it just ‘a roast’? Sadly our roasties had the texture of having been reheated and the Yorkshire puddings were not homemade – at least not on the same day. As someone who grew up on these fluffy delights, this is very disappointing. Proper Yorkshires are cheap, quick and easy to make. They should be gloriously irregular and they need a combination of crisp and pillowy textures; you can always tell a pre-made pud due to their almost crystalline structures, like a savoury meringue – designed to withstand a nuclear winter rather than absorb gravy. If you have good chefs, let them cook, I say.
Nevertheless, the fact this building is in use, being cared for and patronised is something of a relief. It may have a storied history, but it’s only a few short decades since the Town Hall was flirting with demolition – and for locals who might hanker after the Gutmann template of decent prices, good beer and pleasing environs, it’s fair enough. Please sort out the Yorkies though – egg, flour, milk and hot fat. You’ll never look at Aunt Bessie again.
