Five of the best dog-friendly places to eat in Chester

The climb to lunch at the Brewery Tap has fifteen steps. We take them with the dog beside us, leaving Lower Bridge Street below and entering a room built on a scale that makes an ordinary pub table seem rather modest. Elsewhere in Chester, the important direction is sideways: into the Architect’s bar, towards a designated table at the Botanist, out onto Hickory’s veranda beside the Dee. Bringing a dog changes which part of a restaurant we get to inhabit. It deserves more thought than a small paw-print symbol beside the address.

These five places give us quite different reasons to stay once we have arranged the lead beneath the table. There is beer from a farm at Waverton, a Cheshire cheese with a family history worth knowing, coffee roasted by people who test it in the drinks they actually sell. We can make a proper meal of the visit, or stop for a cardamom bun and give the rest of the day back to the dog. A good recommendation has to account for all of it, including where the dog spends the meal.

1. The Brewery Tap

We pause at the top of the steps into Gamul House and look up. The great hall occupies two storeys; its plaster ceiling carries eight carved pendants, and a substantial sandstone fireplace presides over the room. Then we look down again, find the dog a place beside the table and turn to the beer. At table level, a glass and a menu make the room less imposing. A house with medieval origins, altered by later generations, now accommodates the entirely ordinary pleasure of a pint and something to eat. Spitting Feathers’ conversion won a CAMRA and English Heritage award in 2009, recognising the practical achievement of making a historic interior work as a pub.

There is a useful deadline. Dogs are welcome until 8pm, so we come for lunch rather than attempting a late dinner. The entrance steps also matter: anyone bringing an elderly dog, or needing a route without stairs, should settle access with the pub before setting out. At the table, the beer list brings us back to the present. CAMRA records seven changing beers alongside a regular Spitting Feathers ale; the brewery is at Common Farm in Waverton, rather than behind this handsome city frontage.

Thirst Quencher, its 3.9 per cent pale ale, fills our first glass. Late-added hops give it the brisk finish the brewery intends, and the modest strength makes sense for a lunchtime glass. The farm connection extends beyond an address. Spent brewing grain feeds the farm’s cattle and pigs; its beehives supply the honey for the seasonal Honey Trap beer. A seasonal pint of Honey Trap, when available, gives that farm connection a very direct expression. We put the glass down and turn to a menu that has its own willingness to stray.

The Indonesian pork rendang cottage pie, £20.95, requires a moment’s attention. Rendang belongs to the cooking of the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra, and is widely known as beef slowly reduced with coconut milk and spices. Here, pork takes its place beneath a cottage-pie topping, with flatbread and curry-spiced piccalilli alongside. We order it: the prospect of a spiced filling makes the familiar potato-topped pie worth reconsidering. The bread gives us something to draw through the filling, while the pickle introduces a sharp, mustardy interruption to the richer meat. The attraction is that meeting of a familiar potato topping and a filling borrowed from a very different repertoire. Anyone wanting a familiar alehouse lunch can stay with steak, ale and mushroom pie at £18.50, with chunky chips, peas and gravy.

Our other plate is home-roasted ham, a Christleton Orchard egg and chips, £16.95. The named egg supplier brings the meal back towards Chester, and the plate asks less of our attention than the rendang. We move the pickle within reach and keep the dog’s lead clear of the foot of the table. The two plates make a useful case for eating here with mixed appetites: an adventurous order and a straightforward one can share the same table. The main menu’s Monday-to-Saturday offer is £21.95 for two courses or £26.95 for three; certain specials carry a £5 supplement, so check the choice before treating the headline as the whole bill.

For a smaller stop, there are four bar snacks for £20, including haggis croquettes, whitebait and Welsh rarebit mac and cheese. That is a good invitation to stay over a second selection from the pumps, though it is a snack arrangement rather than a substantial meal for four. By the time we gather the lead for the descent to the street, the beer has claimed as much of our attention as the building. A working farm brewery, a kitchen willing to put rendang under potato and a dog welcome inside make this the most absorbing pub lunch of our Chester selection.

52–54 Lower Bridge Street, Chester CH1 1RU.

2. The Architect

The Architect gives us a useful view of what an architect wanted for himself. Thomas Harrison, responsible for Chester’s Grosvenor Bridge and much of the castle complex, made this house his home. We arrive with the dog at a building looking across the Roodee racecourse, then follow the glass connection towards the garden-room bar. The Georgian rooms and newer, more open extension offer different kinds of dining; our reservation specifies a dog, so the table belongs in the bar area. It is worth making that request explicitly. An attractive photograph of a dining room is no guarantee that we and our companion will be seated in it.

The lead sits gathered close to our chair as the dog settles. The extension has glazed doors towards the terrace; the route through the building makes the change from private house to public bar easy to read. Brunning & Price has retained the old house while giving the pub room for a much larger dining operation. Here, the result suits a long lunch after walking Chester: we can sit indoors with the dog, choose from a wide menu and look out towards the grass of the racecourse. On a race day, that prospect has rather more happening in it. For a dog unsettled by crowds, another day is the sensible choice.

Appleby’s Cheshire cheese, onion and potato pie, £17.95, interests us, with buttered greens and redcurrant gravy. We cut through the pastry and bring the potato and onion into the same forkful. Naming the cheese gives this otherwise familiar pub dish a more particular identity. Appleby’s is made at Hawkstone Abbey Farm in Shropshire, where Lucy and Lance Appleby established their dairy in 1952, in stables beside the farmhouse kitchen. The family still works with raw milk and clothbound maturation. Cheshire, in this case, is a cheese tradition extending beyond the county boundary, and the maker’s name tells us considerably more than a vague promise of local ingredients.

On the plate, the appeal is the partnership of cheese and onion, with potato providing substance and the redcurrant gravy taking the accompaniment towards fruit and sweetness. We keep some greens for the next mouthful. This is a full lunch for £17.95; adding a starter is a decision about appetite, not a requirement of the occasion. Across the table, coq au vin pie, £18.95, brings the French wine-braised chicken dish into the same pub idiom, with mash, green vegetables and red-wine gravy. We draw the mash through the gravy. The kitchen has given chicken a wine sauce and a pastry covering, then provided potatoes to gather up what is left: a sensible provision for a plate with this much gravy.

A glass of Tinamou Pinot Noir from Chile, £7.75 for 175ml, accompanies our cheese and chicken. The wine list gives it a place among the lighter, fruit-led reds. There are plenty of opportunities to spend more, including lamb shoulder with dauphinoise at £26.95. A pie and a glass keep the main part of our lunch around £26 a head; the lamb adds nearly £9 before we consider another course.

Bread-and-butter pudding with apricot sauce and vanilla ice cream costs £8.95. We share one, letting the fruit carry some of the interest after the richer first course. The strongest reason to choose the Architect is this combination of a considered setting, a substantial menu and an indoor dog table we can reserve. It is not a cheap refuelling stop, and the dog-friendly allocation limits our choice of room. Outside tables cannot be booked; the small car park also requires registration at the bar for the pub’s three free hours. Our table is booked, the dog is beside us and the walk can wait until we have finished the apricot sauce.

54 Nicholas Street, Chester CH1 2NX.

3. Jaunty Goat, Bridge Street

Inside Jaunty Goat with the dog, an unusually specific decision about coffee awaits us. Costa Rica or Ethiopia? A flat white or a filter? The Bridge Street café roasts its own beans, names the producers and supplies more information than our lead-arranging concentration can usefully absorb. We settle first, among pale wood and locally made furniture, in a room whose Scandinavian influence extends comfortably to the prospect of a cardamom bun. Dogs are welcome inside, with water and biscuits available. We put the lead beside our feet and give the two espresso choices a closer look.

In our £4.30 flat white is the house Costa Rican coffee. It comes from Aquiares, an estate on the slopes of the Turrialba volcano, where the farm handles its production from seedlings through picking and milling. Jaunty Goat names Diego Robelo and the Centroamericano variety, then describes the coffee in terms of nectarine and caramel. Those are the roaster’s tasting notes, a guide to the cup rather than syrup flavours to order. The more revealing detail is how the café chooses a roast: it tests the coffee repeatedly as espresso, long black, flat white and latte before settling on the profile. The coffee in our flat white has been assessed with milk as well as on its own.

Filter drinkers have a rotating selection to investigate too, at £4 for batch brew or £5.50 for a pour-over. We keep the flat white and turn to breakfast. The food is vegetarian, with much of it plant-based, rather than universally vegan. Dairy and eggs remain options, and the labelling needs reading in that light. The menu’s default is plant-based; its small vegetarian marker identifies the exceptions.

Our order is mushrooms on sourdough, £10.50: oyster and chestnut mushrooms with garlic, thyme and chilli oil. We cut the toast into manageable pieces, keeping the mushrooms with the bread. The combination gives breakfast a savoury centre without recruiting either a sausage or a substitute one. Garlic and thyme belong naturally with mushrooms; the chilli oil supplies a little additional insistence. We also order banana-and-oat pancakes, £10.80, with fruit, coconut yoghurt and date syrup. The two plates let us choose savoury or sweet within the plant-based part of the menu.

The bun draws us back to the counter. The pastries are made daily in Jaunty Goat’s own Bridge Street bakery, and availability depends on what remains in the display. At £4.30, the cardamom bun makes a compact second course with the coffee. Cardamom’s warm, aromatic character offers something beyond sugar and cinnamon; we pull off a piece and leave the rest between us. Roasting and baking give the business responsibility for the two things we have made the centre of our morning. The detail on the coffee list, and the daily work of the bakery along the same street, justify choosing it for more than a convenient seat.

The dog has stayed with us throughout breakfast, which is the important distinction from cafés whose welcome ends at their outside tables. There are no reservations, so we allow time to find a suitable space rather than arriving with a tightly scheduled lunch break. Payment is cashless, and cooked food finishes at 3pm even though the café remains open until 5pm. We leave with the lead back in hand and the route through Chester still ahead of us; for another visit, a bun and a flat white come to £8.60, and still buy us a seat indoors with our companion.

57 Bridge Street, Chester CH1 1NG.

4. Hickory’s Smokehouse

We arrive from the Groves with the dog and take our place on the veranda, looking towards the Dee. This is the original Hickory’s, opened in 2010 after the founders’ American research trips, with a riverside address that gives this branch a particular advantage for an outdoor meal. The veranda survived the restaurant’s refurbishment as a dog-friendly space. We have put the dog on the booking request, because the current welcome is outdoors only: an indoor table is not the fallback if the weather turns unpleasant.

There are heaters and blankets, which extend the veranda’s usefulness beyond summer, but we still choose a day on which eating outside sounds agreeable. With the lead gathered beside our chair, we turn towards the river. Families are a substantial part of Hickory’s audience, and the restaurant even has a children’s cinema; this is not a hushed setting for a dog that struggles with activity. The right companion is one content to settle near people, food and a riverside promenade. The right owner has come hungry.

The half-pound portion of Texas-style sliced brisket, £23.50, gives us a way into the smokehouse menu. Hickory’s gives it sixteen hours in the smoker and serves it warm rather than piping hot, with bourbon gravy. That last distinction is worth knowing before judging the plate by the temperature expected of a steak straight from a grill. Brisket asks for a different approach: a fatty cut, a long cooking time and an acceptance that the fat is part of its appeal. The menu offers to remove some for diners who dislike it. We keep the order as intended and draw a slice through a little gravy, leaving the rest available rather than covering everything at once.

Our second order, a full rack of Memphis-style baby-back ribs at £26, comes with a choice of barbecue sauce, maple or bourbon glaze. We choose the barbecue sauce and work from one rib to the next. The menu moves freely between named American regions; we treat it as a choice of meats and preparations rather than a claim that Texas brisket and Memphis ribs are the same cooking tradition. The smokers themselves come from Missouri and Tennessee, an investment in the method beneath the restaurant’s expansive Southern vocabulary. Our interest stays with the brisket and ribs, where that equipment has a clear purpose.

Both main courses include fries or salad, pickles and slaw. At £49.50 together, they make a considerably smaller commitment than the £74 platter for two, which adds several other meats. The platter is worth considering for two diners intent on sampling the range, but we prefer the ability to choose two things and attend to them. A £5.30 root beer keeps the drinks within the American theme without adding alcohol. Its aromatic sweetness also explains why we keep the pickles within reach: a meal of smoked meat, glaze and sweet soda benefits from something sharply contrasting.

The bones stay on our table; the dog’s dinner arrangements remain undisturbed. Hickory’s earns its place for a substantial barbecue meal with an unusually direct connection to the river, provided that the outside-only rule suits both weather and dog. The smokehouse dishes begin at midday, and a discretionary 7.5 per cent service charge is added, which makes noon the starting point for this meal and adds a little over £3.70 to our two main courses. We gather the lead and return to the Groves. After brisket and a rack of ribs, there is considerable agreement at our table about taking the longer walk.

The Groves, Souters Lane, Chester CH1 1AG.

5. The Botanist

Godstall Lane brings us and the dog to the Botanist’s bar. The cathedral is close by; inside, the restaurant has cultivated a rather different sort of grandeur, with plants, garden references and food that sometimes arrives suspended above its plate. We choose a weekday afternoon and a bar table, specifying the dog when booking. Dogs are welcome in the bar and outside, rather than throughout the restaurant. That distinction allows us an indoor meal, but it also puts us in the part of the building most directly involved in its social life.

For our visit, the timing is deliberate. Friday and Saturday evenings bring live music, and the bar’s appeal to people enjoying a lively night may be precisely what unsettles a nervous dog. Earlier, we can arrange ourselves at a table and give the menu more attention. The hanging kebab is the conspicuous order: meat or another main ingredient threaded above a choice of accompaniment, with sauce ready to travel downwards. We keep the lead beneath the chair and leave room on the tabletop. The kebabs require a little more vertical clearance than a pub lunch usually anticipates.

With the £17.95 harissa lamb kofta, we choose garlic oil and pomegranate couscous. Kofta is seasoned minced meat shaped for cooking; choosing it gives the spice a place within the main ingredient, rather than relying entirely on a sauce added afterwards. The alternative sauce is soy sweet chilli, but our preference is for a less sweet accompaniment. We ease the kofta down towards the plate and bring the couscous into the forkful. The suspension contributes theatre, while the choice of sauce and side determines the meal we actually eat. Those choices deserve more attention than the photograph.

The turmeric-spiced tofu kebab, £18.95, is a useful second order. Marinated in vegan garlic yoghurt and accompanied by soy sweet chilli sauce and pomegranate couscous, it gives a vegan diner the same principal dish format rather than a collection of sides. The sweet chilli gives it a different accompaniment from the garlic oil we have chosen for the lamb. We pass the sauce and settle into eating. This is familiar restaurant food made sociable and conspicuous; it suits a group with different dietary preferences more readily than someone seeking a particularly Chester-specific kitchen.

A pint of Pravha is £4.95 during the Monday-to-Friday happy hour, from 4pm to 7pm. That keeps the drinks bill manageable without requiring us to join in with the more elaborate cocktails. For an earlier visit, the £8.95 weekday lunch menu runs until 4pm and offers a smaller kebab on garlic flatbread with rocket and hummus. The price difference is substantial enough to shape the day, especially for anyone wanting a pause during shopping rather than a full evening meal. We have chosen the larger plates and keep one further course between us.

The lemon verbena tart, £8.50, comes with a brûléed top, raspberry ripple ice cream and viola flowers. Lemon verbena is an aromatic shrub whose leaves have a strong lemon scent; its inclusion gives the garden theme a role in the flavour as well as the decoration. We break through the sugared surface and divide the tart. The tart follows the lamb and tofu without adding another elaborate serving apparatus to our table. We have had the theatrical main course, a modestly priced beer and something aromatic to finish, with the dog indoors throughout. We finish in the bar before the evening develops. For owners whose dogs like company, that early visit is the recommendation; for a dog seeking quiet, the music nights are a reason to make another plan.

13 St Werburgh Street, Chester CH1 2DY.