Our first week on the trail of the Best Smithwick’s Experience in Dublin ends down in Beggar’s Bush at relatively young establishment – even its website describes the pub as new – in The Bath Pub. The Bath while very much a post-boom establishment, is certainly more swankier than the next pub (the resolutely dour Lansdowne Bar) and eschews a bright, clean modernity.
On the eve of Brian O’Driscoll’s last match in Lansdowne Road against Italy, and in the shadow of that old (well, new) stadium, we are perched in one of few available seats at the bar in The Bath. The lounge space is dominated by ‘reserved’ signs and parties filling up their pre-booked tables as I order my Smithwick’s Pale Ale. Beside me at the bar, a man I assume is a visiting Italian, tanned and sipping Peroni casually asks the stout-pouring barman in his latin-accented English why they pour it in two goes. “It’s just the way it works,” he says, moments before proffering an actual technical answer that seems somewhat mundane than his initial, fatalistic announcement. I almost expect Toto Schillaci to appear.
The Bath is a relatively new bar that has quickly established itself as a local favourite, close enough to Pearse Street to feel very near to town but also set within the extremely residential Bath Avenue. Appropriately, The Bath’s main space is bright, clean and well attended by a troupe of uniformed lounge girls and it feels almost like going to early evening party in a nice house belonging to a friend.
The barman is cheery without being try-hard, dealing with the increasing (and variegated) demands of the post-work crowd of a Friday evening in a manner that smacks of experience. He smoothly pours and serves my Smithwick’s Pale Ale – cold, ever-so-slightly fruity and appropriately golden on this bright spring evening – and points me in the direction of the food menu.
Though the weekend’s (mouthwatering) brunch menu is already chalk-boarded both at the bar and on the street, but during the bustling Friday evening, the food menu is solely pizzas from Base, indicative of the resounding fanciness of the The Bath, And it is just as you would expect from a Base pizza, it’s pretty delicious, albeit very much made for sharing around a table rather than trying to gobble yourself.
It later turns out that my latin neighbour is French, and not Italian as he speaks with some compatriots en français. While this spoils the illusion that Mr. Schillaci might be about to labour through the pronunciation of Smithwick’s, it doesn’t spoil the fine early evening buzz in this delightfully fancy pub.
The Bath Pub
Bath Avenue, Dublin 4
t: 087 7628039
