Holiday in Hull: Why our special city centre offers so much
By Phil Ascough
I’ve been saying this for years but the people who slag off Hull tend to be those who have never been here or those who have never been anywhere else.
Either they are oblivious to what Hull has to offer or they don’t know how we compare to other places and so assume the worst.
I came to live in Hull in 1980 after being blown away by the charm and the character of the place and the people. And of course the pubs.
It’s even better now, improved by investment which has been substantial and thoughtful. Our brief holiday in Hull was not to test the place but to spend quality time enjoying some of the places we already knew.
When the plumbers took over our house for a few days we could have gone pretty much anywhere but we headed south from Cottingham because Hull is great fun, and I decided to write something in the hope that a few more people become aware of that.
We confined our stay to the city centre and didn’t move the car from Monday afternoon until Friday morning. We walked round galleries and museums, cobbled streets and pleasant pedestrianisation, flowers and fountains, pubs and restaurants, new town and Old Town with their modern shopping centres and quaint old arcades.
GREAT FOOD AND DRINK: Some of the offerings at Furley & Co
There’s a serious point at the heart of this. Hull traditionally and unjustly gets a bad press but the issues it faces are no different from anywhere else. You’ll find rough sleepers and shuttered units in most towns and cities but they don’t define a destination.
You’ll also find hospitality businesses struggling to keep their heads above water. It’s not easy given the vicious circle of a scarcity of customers stifling trade, contributing to staff shortages and then in turn to reduced opening hours, making those same businesses even less attractive and convenient for visitors. But that’s all the more reason to support them.
Our Monday Night Supper Club which has been running in the Hull area for over five years – or seven if you don’t count Covid – has generated direct revenue of around £150,000, plus more from repeat business for restaurants which are bold enough to open on the first night of the week.
There’s no escaping the fact that on our Monday night there were far more places closed than open, but we enjoyed a beer in the Minerva, great food and drink at Furley & Co and a couple of pints in the Kingston. All three are open seven days a week – a rarity in Hull and, according to a recent Jay Rayner column, the metropolis that is Manchester.
We counted how many steps it took from one front door to the other. Then we forgot, but it’ll be about a hundred.
Having lunched on Monday at McCoys – still serving great food more than 30 years after opening – we headed to another city centre veteran on Tuesday. The Omelette opened more than 50 years ago and we found it abuzz with diners who were clearly regulars.
BETTER THAN EVER: Greek delights at Blue Bay Mediterranean Restaurant
Artemis Greek Taverna was a great addition to the dining scene when it opened on the corner of Albion Street and Charles Street in 2019 but was hit hard by successive lockdowns. Now, as Blue Bay Mediterranean Restaurant, it’s better than ever. Regular opening is Thursday to Saturday but it’s worth calling to check.
They opened on a Tuesday to cater for crowds heading to Hull New Theatre and looking for a quick pizza or plate of pasta expertly prepared by a chef recruited from The Brain Jar, itself acclaimed for its fare.
We called in after drinks at the Hop & Vine and their purrs of appreciation made way for a few “oohs” and “aahs” as eyes were diverted to our Greek delights including chicken souvlaki, meatballs, feta parcels, Greek salad with a tzatziki twist, garlic mushrooms and a sensational battered calamari.
On Wednesday we had a couple of pints in The Punch and watched as it filled up, wall to wall, with people heading to a gig at the Bonus Arena. We left them to it and wandered off to our table at Long An, a wonderful Vietnamese restaurant which I’d first tried a month before the first lockdown. It’s stylish and spacious, the food light and in parts luxurious and the staff attentive and ambitious to make the place the best it can be.
Our plans for a more mainstream dining experience on Thursday, maybe fish and chips, pie or stroganoff at Leonardo’s or the Kingston Theatre Hotel, steak at the Junkyard or the Lantern, or Bert’s pizza or pasta at either end of Humber Street were abandoned in favour of a table at Trinity Live. What’s not to like about three live performances when surrounded by an array of fantastic food and drink outlets and a couple of hundred people having fun?
Trinity Live, the New Theatre and the Bonus Arena all showed that events entice people into the city centre, and there’s much more going on with the City Hall, Hull Truck and Wrecking Ball plus a summer of special attractions with Hull Street Food Nights, the Yum! Festival, Humber Street Sesh and Freedom.
GROW-YOUR-OWN: The Rooted in Hull urban farm
During the day we enjoyed The Deep, the Ferens where we caught the tail end of this year’s open exhibition showcasing the remarkable talents of artists of all ages, and the Street Life Museum. It’s so exciting to think that this portfolio of treasures will be enhanced by the restoration of the Maritime Museum and the Northern Dockyard, the sprucing up of Queens Gardens and the transformation at Albion Square.
Along the route of our riverside walk we paid a first visit to Rooted in Hull, the urban farm which promotes grow-your-own, home cooking and healthy eating as part of a vision of sustainable food for all. And when we finally collected our car we drove round there to pick up a few pots of herbs for our garden.
You don’t have to book into the city centre to enjoy its hospitality but we know people from Sproatley and Brough who would rather spend on an overnight stay than fret about the cost and availability of taxis. There are also growing numbers of city centre residents – many of those who keep the bar staff at The George busy until midnight clearly live locally.
We chose the Hideout Hotel, winner of Channel 4’s Four in a Bed, because its self-contained apartments have everything – quality facilities and finishes, big comfy beds, doors substantial enough to shut out the sound of the bells from the Minster just a few feet across North Church Side.
The one with Atom-Corn Exchange pub on one end of the building, Trinity Market and the Kingston Hotel on the other and, halfway along, BE Coffee, now my favourite coffee shop and the perfect place to sit and flick through the pages of my holiday reading, purchased from J E Books. Managers Enya Donohoe and Jodie Richardson say the Hideout Hotel is full for the graduation days and in demand for wedding weekends and all those big festivals. Enya even stayed there at Christmas in case the festive guests needed any last-minute trimmings or tinfoil!
STUNNING: Hull Minster
Even with four nights there is so much more we could have done with our holiday in Hull. We didn’t make it for food at Tanyalak or at any of the Humber Street haunts. We missed the Old English Gentleman, Ye Olde White Harte, Ye Olde Black Boy, Sailmakers Arms and even Atom.
And we didn’t spend nearly enough time browsing the vinyl in the city centre record shops, which by my reckoning now totals five. We’ll have to go again.
Prices
Apartment for four nights at the Hideout Hotel £306. Dinner and drinks at Furley & Co about £50. At Blue Bay Mediterranean Restaurant about £65. At Long An about £70. Pub prices for two pints of Stella varied from £3.30 to £4.50. Three pots of growing herbs at Rooted in Hull costs £5.