Located near my place of employment, it was an inevitability that I soon ended up at the downtown…read moreBrown Hound (which is also the latest Halifax-themed elocution phrase).
It's slightly off the beaten path, occupying the lower level of the Benjamin Wier House near the corner of Bishop and Hollis. The historic building is the perfect setting for a pub and the plentiful stone, brick and wood transports you away from the contemporary towers that could have been copy and pasted from any city. This truly feels like Halifax.
The menu has familiar bar bites and British fare, but is more compact than most of its peers, with about a dozen mains and has as many apps, which lends more confidence into the effort being put into those dishes.
Popping over for a pre-holiday lunch with co-workers, I gave in and went for the steak and Guinness pie. Savoury pastries have a special place in my heart (both figuratively and literally with how hearty they are) and I was eager to see what Brown Hound's was like.
Despite our moderately-sized group, our food came out in quick order.
The pie was doused in a layer of gravy, and came with a side of fries and a smattering of roasted vegetables. The pastry was flaky on top and supple enough below to hold everything together. I appreciated that the chunky tenderloin tips were fork-tender and not at all dry, and the rich Guinness gravy made for a lovely hot mess.
I feel like a lot of restaurants have given up on making good hand-cut fries and take the easy way out and get coated fries from their food service provider, and Brown Hound seems to be amongst them. I like them well enough, and they are true to their name, but it seems like a cop out and makes them inedible to people with celiac.
A return visit saw my wife and I coming by for dinner on the patio. It wasn't quite as sunny as would have been ideal, but that's a common sentiment in Halifax. It's a nice space in the cul-de-sac/courtyard though, with plenty to take in, from the historic buildings through to the new.
This time around, I opted for their house burger, while my wife got their shepherd's pie, and I sipped on a pint of Breton Brewing's strawberry rhubarb sour.
Our food came in good time, and we hungrily tucked into our dinners.
I really enjoyed their burger! Interestingly, it's a mix of beef and pork, and I'll go out on a limb and assume that's a food cost control effort. I don't mind, and you don't really notice for better or worse, but it does restrict your potential clientele a bit if they don't eat pork, especially since I didn't see an no all-beef option.
That all said the patty and its accoutrements tasted great. The jalapeno Monterey Jack cheese was nicely melted and brought a mild, but quite noticeable pop of heat. The bacon was good and crispy, while arugula brought its signature peppery bite.
The remaining standard toppings - tomato, onion, and dill pickle - brought some freshness and contrast against the richer items. I was looking forward to the rosemary aioli, but it didn't stand out from the other flavours. The toasted bun held up well against its messy payload.
The menu said it was the beer-battered fries for this, but it was a from-frozen, skin-on variety, which while not amazing, were still decently crispy and solved my aforementioned accessibility issue with the beer-battered ones.
My wife's shepherd's (technically cottage since it was beef and pork, and not lamb) pie was a very hefty serving. Interestingly, the potatoes were in sporadic dollops rather than one smooth layer, and the meat and vegetable layer was much more stew-like than a typical shepherd's pie. It all worked though; the potatoes were smooth and creamy a had a touch of browning from the broiler, while the stew-y part was hearty and rich.
The Brown Hound is brushing with greatness, and if it leaned into the British part of the menu a little more and had a few minor tweaks to step their game up, they could take over the top tier of the pub scene in Halifax.
