Home, Hull

There are very few sure things in the restaurant and hospitality trade, but a great, low-risk new venture from someone responsible for changing forever the food and drink culture in Hull is as close to a safe bet as your going to get.

Home (on an unfancied strip of currently unfashionable Beverley Road – more of which later) is the latest offering from Steve Shaw, one of the men who started the hugely-influential cafe/bar/(but mainly) pub Pave around the turn of the millennium which, in turn, began the reinvigoration of the eating and drinking habits of most of the city and which played a significant part in the eventual successful bid for City of Culture.
Remarkable to think that a couple of lads with more sense than money opening their own pub could have such far-reaching consequences but there is a definite line to be drawn between the immediate success of Pave and the flowering of gastronomy in the Avenues and the consequent shift in the culture and confidence of the city.
After Steve left Pave, he and wife Sam (who works alongside him) started the Handheld Food Company, a travelling catering firm operating out of a converted retro American trailer. Wherever you found Handheld, you could expect a corking curry or some Jamaican jerk dish or a tasty veggie delight for the non-carnivores. Now that business is well-established, Home is an attempt to bring the aesthetic of the trailer in from the cold and give it a roof over its head.
Steve and Sam don’t want Home to be seen as a restaurant or a cafe or a bar, just somewhere to hang out where you can also get food and drink. There are regular music nights, an art wall and relaxed DJ sets. The menu is kept deliberately simple and small, with a couple of options sectioned into meat, fish and vegan on a changed daily chalk boards, with the addition of soups, salads and wraps during the day. They open mid-morning and close late evening and the idea is that you can pop in for a coffee, see what happens and maybe end up staying for a sarnie or a full evening meal.
I’d be perfectly happy going in Home and just having a pint or a glass of wine without worrying I was stealing the seat off a diner.
After a handful of visits, I can heartily recommend the place. The imaginative breakfasty -brunch options include porridge or homemade granola or you can have fantastic toasted sourdough as a base with a choice of toppings like bacon, salmon, avocado or tomatoes. What I like to go for, though, is the hugely unsophisticated but entirely ace eggy bread. With lashings of brown sauce. And I don’t care who knows it.
Breakfast/brunch is the only time there’s any kind of fixed menu. The rest of the day, there is one chalk board for light snacks, one for bigger meals and a little one tucked away with some dessert options. On one visit, I was introduced to jackfruit, the (supposedly) highly-nutritious member of the breadfruit family that is popular with vegans. Home serves it in a wrap with jerk seasoning and chilli, avocado and other bits an bobs. Very good it was too, the texture of slow-cooked lamb or pork but a sweeter, fruitier flavour.
Wraps, sarnies and soups tend to come in at around £6 and bigger plates at around £7-14. I’ve had excellent roast cod loin with Mediterranean veg and chorizo and pesto dribbled around the plate and a fantastic lamb kofta with broad beans and lemon. The dish I’m entirely addicted to, though, is the Korean chicken wings. £9 for a dish full of sticky, spicy, meaty magnificence. I can see them becoming the only permanent fixture on the menu. They better, anyway, or I’m kicking off.

The plan now for Steve and Sam is to make Home the start of a sea-change on Beverley Road. It has an undeserved bad reputation with many in the city so it seems to have become a road too far for those on the drinking and eating circuit.
Just as happened with Pave, though, I’d expect the opening of Home to draw in a new audience and for other, complementary businesses to appear around and opposite. It’s happened once and, with the absolute right people leading the charge, it could very quickly happen again.
Home, 321 Beverley Road, Hull, HU5 1LD. Tel: 01482 442110, www.handheldathome.co.uk. Open: 10am-10pm, Monday to Wedneday; 10am-11pm, Thursday to Saturday; 10am-7pm, Sunday.

About The Author

Dave Lee

Dave Lee is TV producer and film-maker who also writes on food & drink, travel and culture for various publications. He is a regular contributor on BBC Radio 4 and the Yorkshire Post. Worryingly, he believes that the finest food on earth is the pattie butty.

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