THE PLACE:
There’s always been a lot of affection for The Barley Mow – we’re not sure we’ve heard anyone say a bad word about the place. Found just far enough down St George Street to attract Kemptown villagers rather than the city centre crowd, it’s a proper boozer with a few cute touches like sweets behind the bar and loads of chalkboard fun. In fact an expansive specials board pulled us in when we discovered we couldn’t eat in at the rather promising Pizzaface across the road.

THE MEAL:
There’s a small regular offering of steak, scampi (proper wholetail stuff) and doorstep sandwiches but the Barley Mow seems to like to mix things up with a rather good range of fish and seafood, pies and chops on an ever changing specials board. The gammon with pineapple, eggs and chips (£8.25) pulls us in – must be the old school vibe – which isn’t wise journalistically as gammon is what it is really. It came with two eggs though and the huge chunky chips were soft and fluffy in the middle. As well as a range of standard burgers there was a special in the form of a chorizo, sun-blushed tomato and cheese offering (a rather pricey £10.25). Thick and homemade, it didn’t skimp on the sun-blushed tomato and was a nice twist on a classic. The salad was fairly conventional but most importantly tasted nice and fresh. We were full enough to forget to order puddings so missed out on sticky toffee pudding (£4.25).

THE VERDICT:
Yeah, pretty good but perhaps a little expensive. They’re not reinventing the wheel but if you like solid old school grub in a friendly environment this could be just the ticket. The pub gets a lovely mix of old and young and this food seems to fit the clientele perfectly.

WERE WE SUSSED: Not at all – even though it was quiet we grabbed our photos like ninjas, took all our notes in our heads, crept out politely.

The Barley Mow, 92 St George’s Rd, 01273 682 259