Customs House Waterfront Hotel

PROFILED BY DE GROOTS MEDIA
This is one of the many pubs, cafes and restaurants lining the city’s busy and beautiful waterfront precinct. As a drinking spot, it has an attractive wooden bar, popular street-side tables, a fine range of beers on tap including Cascade, Guinness and Kilkenny and the keno and pokies are happily tucked out of sight at the back. The hotel dates from 1846 and still has the historic sandstone facade, charm, sense of history and atmosphere of the time when it was called a Tavern and Chophouse.

The dining area has been gentrified a little since then and the menu is somewhat more upmarket than you might expect from a chophouse. In fact, it’s long enjoyed a reputation as one of the city’s better hotel eateries and as the home of Tasmanian scallops which, in earlier times, were served as bar snacks and today still feature on the bar and restaurant menus. You can have them in the half shell in the traditional guises of garlic, Kilpatrick or mornay while other dishes come with more contemporary Asian-accented flavours like chilli lime chicken and crispy pork belly with bok choy and honey soy glaze. There’s a reasonable selection of wines, prices are middle-of-the road and the atmosphere and harbour views make up for the at times pub-casual service.

Graeme Phillips