Restaurant - Caf Retro

Although it looks small from the outside the upstairs restaurant is surprisingly spacious and there is plenty of room. The tables are all spaced out, so you have plenty of privacy and there are lots of little tea lights giving off an inviting glow.

It is the ideal place to get out of the cold on a winter's evening and have some good, substantial food.

We had heard quite a lot about Caf Retro before. The downstairs part is a caf by day, ideal for chilling out after a shopping expedition and the restaurant upstairs, which has recently undergone a menu change, is open in the evenings for a relaxing dinner.

If you are into steaks and burgers then this is most definitely your kind of place. And don't worry if you are a vegetarian, of course there is no veggie steak but there are veggie burgers if you don't want the meaty ones.

The burgers practically take up a menu on their own as they come with no less than 13 choices of topping!

The starters are kept pretty simple, with all the usuals like garlic bread and nachos, as well as a few extras.

Martin plumped for deep-fried Camembert, served with a red onion relish.

I must say I was also tempted by this but the thought of the calorific value of deep-fried cheese put me off a bit, so I went for the prawn filo parcels with a sweet chilli dip instead.

This is usually a safe choice as it proved to be here, with five nice juicy prawns wrapped in filo pastry.

I had to try a bit of Martin's deep-fried Camembert as well, just for the purposes of research, and thought it was outstanding.

The creaminess of the melted cheese was complimented by the delicious red onion relish, and you also get some nice French bread to eat it with definitely a choice we would recommend.

For main course Martin opted for a veggie burger with a chilli cheese and jalepeno pepper topping. All burgers are served with a generous portion of fries and a huge mound of salad and coleslaw.

I decided to have the homemade salmon and cod fishcake. As with many of the main courses you get a choice of side dishes between salad and herb- roasted vegetables and then you can choose between fries, dauphinoise potatoes and aubergine and pesto mash.

Intrigued by the sound of the mash I went for this and some herb-roasted vegetables.

Martin's burger was very good although he said couldn't taste the chilli in the topping but then again knowing him unless it was super-hot he probably wouldn't!

My fishcake was huge and packed with fish. You could easily tell it was home-made and it was miles better than any fishcake I had been served in a restaurant before. It came with a sweet chilli dip and a small side salad.

The aubergine and pesto mash was a great accompaniment, and had a lovely flavour very tasty and creamy.

Surprisingly the massive portions hadn't filled us up too much for dessert.

Martin selected banoffee pie from the menu, which had slices of fresh banana on top, and my choice of chocolate mousse was lovely and creamy without being too rich and sweet.

All together our bill for three courses and a bottle of wine came to £41, which is outstanding value for money.

By Sarah Seamarks

Caf Retro

18 York Street

Bath

Tel: (01225) 339847

Fact File

Restaurant open Tuesday to Saturday 6pm-10pm.

Starters from £2, main courses from £6.20, desserts from around £3.

Nearest car park Manvers Street or Charlotte Street.

Smoking throughout the restaurant.

Vegetarian dishes.