Reviews

AA GOOD PUB GUIDE 2006

Always a pub, this 150-year old listed building is located in an industrial area of the city, and is believed to be haunted. The proprietor, a former economics lecturer, bought it 25 years ago. His vision was of a free house that could offer a constantly changing range of (10) real ales, home-cooked food including a good vegetarian choice, a no smoking area, real open fires and a beer garden. Acknowledged as the first real ale pub in the city , the award-winning Fat Cat has its own brewery, named after the adjoining Kelham Island, and at least four of its draught beers are always featured. The keenly priced food is offered from a weekly menu with daily specials. Dishes might include nutty parsnip pie, chicken casserole, or a buffet selection.Vegan and gluten-free dishes included.

THE GOOD BEER GUIDE 2006

Campaign for Real Ale

What further is there to say in plaudit that has not been put in print before? It is in danger of running our of wall space to fit in all the awards for the pub, its food and the beer from Kelham Island, for which it is effectively the brewery tap. The old-fashioned pub provides clean air in the no-smoking room, a cosy public bar, a family friendly room and a pleasant garden.

The Times

Stephen McClarence 3rd July 1999

The approach to this pub - one of the few mentioned in Hansard - isn't promising. Follow the signs to Kelham Island Industrial Museum through an urban backwater and there it is, a real ale pub reborn in a Victorian back street. The hanging baskets and windowboxes hint at the welcome inside. The front parlour and upstairs lounge tolerate smokers but the snug was one of the first no-smoking rooms in a British pub. It was mentioned in the Commons by MP Joe Ashton (hence Hansard) and is now taken so seriously that not even cleaners and decorators are allowed to smoke in it. There is little to distract from the serious business of good conversation and drinking. "Oh no, no Muzak here," said manager Stephen Fearn. "Unless it's Lou's guitar class upstairs on Tuesday or the Kelham Folk Choir rehearsing." He has been at the Fat Cat since 1984 and has watched other pubs imitate its laid -back, unpretentious style. On a busy evening students, lecturers, walkers and folkies mix - but there's not a beard in sight. Fearn can talk you through original gravities till the hops come home and patiently explains the relative sweetness of the damson and cowslip wines ranged over the bar. In the corner, a man reading The Times looks startled as his mobile rings. "Sorry", he says and rushes outside to answer it in a low, embarrassed voice. The Fat Cat's drinkers are considerate and tactful.

Wines - A good range of English country wines, and more limited French table wines at around £1.20 a glass.

Ales - Ten draft ales, including three from the attached Kelham Island Brewery (from £1.37 a pint). Belgian and Bavarian beers.

Food - Good, wholesome food at lunchtime - pies, bakes and casseroles at around £2.50. There are always three vegetarian choices on the menu and one vegan option. Sandwiches are served in the evening.

Garden/Area to talk - Basic backyard garden. No Smoking area - One of the first in the country. Women-friendly - No truck with sexism.

Overall - A real pub for real ale and real people. It exudes a rare sense of local community.

Out To Eat

Elizabeth Carter (Which? Books)

A health-conscious pub with a no-smoking room, real ales and wholesome food served with North Country generosity. The tiled fire places, old mirrors and posters reflect the past, while the loyalty of the place is to community arts and alternative entertainments. A menu of substantial dishes might take in lightly salted hefty tomato and vegetable soup; sausage and pasta casserole; and prawn and potato curry. Bread is granary; sunflower margarine is used instead of butter and there are fruit crumbles with proper custard to finish. Draught beers, ciders and some drinkable wines.

Where In Sheffield - Konrad

Sheffield's celebrated real ale free house, is not surprisingly full of character. Real fires, a sturdy bar and a non smoking room. Quite a few suits at lunchtime and often a loud crowd in the upstairs room of an evening. Outdoors there is a yard with benches where barbecues are held, weather permitting, usually every other Saturday or Monday. Lunches are cheap, served quickly and include massive sandwiches and vegetarian meals. There are five regular beers and five guests which explains why it is a real ale haven (heaven!). Also served are organic bottled beers (many from Belgium) and draught cider. The pub can supply beer for parties and four pint takeaways are available. Dave Wickett is never stumped for good ideas and has another project in the offing.

Pub Walks In South Yorkshire

Leonard Markham

"Add a bakelight switch, a Winston Speech and the drone of the Luftwaffe overhead and you could well be back in the 1940's. It is a veritable shrine to home brewed ales and wholefood menus, this pub offers open fired and a heady concoction of nostalgia and atmosphere". Good Food in Yorkshire and Humberside - Jill Turton A back street pub that devotes half of its menu to vegetarian dishes is a rarity but the Fat Cat is an independent sort of place. David Wickett, polytechnic lecturer turned licensee, has moulded the sort of bar he wanted to drink in: no music, no games machines and, in one particular bar, no-smoking. Out at the back, ………the real ales (are brewed) for which the Cat is primarily renowned and wins its laurels in the ale guides. Alison Gosling wins praise here for her filling stews and pies and lentil soup or spinach and red beans with pasta. Hearty puddings of gooseberry crumble or apple pie are served with cream or custard. Handily positioned for visitors to the nearby Kelham Island Industrial Museum.

The Quiet Pint

The Daily Telegraph Aurum Press Ltd

Sheffield's first real ale house started brewing its own Kelham Island beer in the premises next door to the pub in 1990. Very reasonably priced food -filling home-made soups, stews, pies and daily specials, plus a number of imaginative vegetarian dishes and usually, one fish dish. Good English puddings - crumbles and pies with cream or custard. Ten draught ales always available:….. Timothy Taylors Landlord, (at least)two from Kelham Island and six guest beers. Draught Belgian beers are available together with Belgian fruit jenevers and Draught cider. Country fruit wines and small barrels of Kelham Island Beer can be ordered in advance to take away. Seats in the courtyard at the back of the pub. The Fat Cat has been a CAMRA South Yorkshire Pub of the Year, so you know the beer is excellent.

Good Pub Food

Susan Nowak

A chipless pub of all home-cooked fare where cook Alison Gosling plans menus daily to include home-made soup, and five main dishes with at least one fish and two vegetarian(gluten free) and pasta. She is keen on vegetarian food and might create aubergine and mushroom casserole with herb dumplings, spicy bean cobbler, black-eyed bean and pepper casserole, with pasta accompanied by savoury spinach and tomato sauce topped with mozzarella or creamed leek and mushrooms. Meat dishes might be ham with mustard sauce, chicken and tomato casserole, Mexican mince or beef with pepper stew. She'd like to ring the changes with soup but faces an outcry if there is no lentil and vegetable. There are two comfortable rooms, a corridor drinking space and upstairs function room where children can eat. It is close to Kelham Island Industrail Museum.

The Good Pub Guide 2004

Alistair Aird, Ebury Press

A major draw to this popular pub of course remains the big choice of up to 10 real ales on handpump, including their own, and they have a popular Brewery Visitor's Centre with framed beer mats, pump clips and prints on the wall. As well as their own-brewed and cheap Kelham Island Bitter, Pale Rider, Easy Rider, and another Kelham Island beer, there are six on handpump from breweries like Cottage, Daleside, Durham, Glentworth, Moorhouses, Scattor Rock and so forth, plus Belgian bottled beers, two Belgian draught beers, fruit gin, country wines, and farm cider. Incredibly cheap, enjoyable bar food includes sandwiches lentil soup (£2), ploughman's (£3), spinach pasta, courgette and potato pie, pork casserole or quiche (from £3), and puddings such as rhubarb crumble or jam roly-poly (£1); well liked Sunday lunch (3.50). There's always a good, chatty bustle, and the two small downstairs rooms have brewery-related prints on the walls, coal fires, simple wooden tables and cushioned seats around the walls, and jugs, bottles, and some advertising mirrors; the one on the left is no smoking; cribbage and dominoes, and maybe a not-so-fat-cat wandering around. Steep steps take you up to another similarly simple room (which may be booked for functions) and some attractive prints of old Sheffield; there are picnic-sets in a fairy lit back courtyard.