Eating out in Bath is a bit of a mixed bag.

I have always found it difficult to recommend a restaurant here that isn’t overly expensive, grand, or just a bit, well, provincially stuffy. (I know, I probably don’t get out enough, so I am delighted to let you in on this little secret.)

The Bathwick Boatman Restaurant - not to be confused with ‘The Boathouse’ theme-pub a couple of miles downriver – has quietly been taken over by chef Ben Hall and his lovely, rather sexy wife, Rosy. If you like real Italian and Spanish inspired cooking, with honest, super-fresh local ingredients, decent proportions, delicious wines, and an unpretentious, relaxed atmosphere, then this is the get-away-from-it-all destination for you.

Hidden away behind some red brick terraces and bordering the Avon river, you have to go through elaborate iron gates, a parking ‘yard’, and traverse a hidden leafy little bridge to discover the entrance.

Now, it is above a real boathouse. It is plain and simple. But the place is spotless, with crisp white linen, huge stainless steel cutlery, generous glasses and lots of freshly scrubbed wood. Most of my visitors to Bath are not wanting swanky decor anyway. They want – need, in fact - to get away from all that. Slow down a bit. Fall in love again.

I can’t think of anywhere more romantic to eat in Bath.
You could laze away an entire afternoon or candle-lit evening on their creaky verandah watching the boats go by.

And getting there? If you can’t manage the 5 minute stroll from the City centre, hop on the boat tour that departs upstream from Pulteney Bridge and they will drop you off at the restaurant a minute later for FREE, if you ask them nicely.

PS. Stuff: when you do get there, order the ravioli. All the pasta is handmade in the morning on their wooden-rollered-pasta-machine. Knowledge: The wooden rollers give the pasta a ‘grain’ that holds the delicious sauces, unlike smooth metal rollers.

The Bathwick Boatman Restaurant

Forester Road, Bathwick, Bath, BA2 2QE

tel:01225 428844

The little-known Building of Bath Museum is my favourite place to take visitors who want to know more about the city but don’t want to spend too much beer time doing it.
Even though it has a city-centre location, few have heard of it and fewer-still find it.

Which is a pity.

So if you’re heading this way and feel you’d like to know more about the architecture after the Roman Baths but before the £45 milli-loon 2006 ones, then head round to the Paragon for some virtue.

On the way you’ll pass the super-stylish, refreshingly unique, The Inspired Maker. Please buy more of my bags so that I can kit out my home with their 1930’s furniture finds.
And The Star, probably one of the few unspoilt pubs left in the world, is just a bit further on. What could possibly stop you?

What I had previously failed to notice (after 20 years living around the corner) was the fact that the laundrette was originally a Georgian butcher’s shop. When you look up at the covered area outside -which you do when with an observant photographer- there are the most amazing meat hooks, stucco and fanlights…

If you’re visiting Bath, and have enough puff left to stagger round the back of the Royal Crescent, you’ll find it tucked away among the St. James Street shops. A great place to have a relaxing refreshment at Mangia Bene (the snazzy local deli) or get something stronger at the nearby Marlborough Tavern.

*For those living outside our fair isles, “take a butcher’s hook” is the Cockney Rhyming Slang for ‘take a look’.