Mermaids served seafood dishes and wine at Hort’s Oyster Bar and Buttery in Bristol, England, according to this delightful menu illustration.
Owners and siblings Richard, Annie and Bessie Hort came from a distinguished family of caterers when they opened their eponymous restaurant in 1922.
Their mother and maternal grandmother had run eating houses in the popular English city straddling the River Avon, and the trio had grown up in the family business called the Exchange Dining Rooms in the appropriately named Wine Street. The first cocktails ever mixed in the city were reputed to have been made there.
In 1922, the Horts moved the restaurant they inherited to Broad Street. According to local historian Eugene Byrne, its signature dishes were oyster soup and Dover sole.
As with many upper-class places serving alcohol back then, women were only allowed in certain rooms. The whole place had been men-only until the First World War when wounded army officers complained they could not bring their wives in,’ he observed.
The Hort’s building itself had been a house built around 1792 and its basement with a barrel-vaulted ceiling dated back to the 15th century when it was used as a tavern.
The siblings ran the restaurant for two decades and sold it in 1943 to Italian immigrants Frank and Aldo Berni, who would later run the British chain of Berni Steakhouses.
We believe this menu is from the 1960s when Hort’s was still owned by the brothers.
There were other owners in the ensuing years but now, a century on from its foundation, Hort’s Townhouse is owned by Young and Co Brewery and is a beautifully restored pub and 19-room hotel. Sadly, there are no mermaids serving as waitresses.
If you are wondering what a Buttery is – it’s an old British term for a cellar or room where food and drink was stored and served to passing travelers.