The selection of restaurants is only slightly more remarkable than the hotels, and many places are open only during the day. You'll find reliable if rather unimaginative fare in the Orchids at the Undercroft restaurant in the cathedral, open until 5pm, and at the cafe-bar in the Guildhall on Eastgate Street - open until 11pm and always lively. Ye Olde Fish Shoppe on Hare Lane, even more of a Gloucester institution, occupies a sixteenth-century building and is the fanciest take-away for miles; it serves excellent crispy fish until 6.30pm, though the attached restaurant stays open later (tel 01452/255502; closed all Sun & Mon eve). In the evenings, choice extends to the vaulted Bearland Restaurant in Longsmith Street, with a set-price menu at ?11.95, and the atmospherically French Cafe Rene , Greyfriars, Southgate Street, where walls and ceilings are smothered with bottles (closed Mon & Tues). For pizzas go to Pizza Piazza at Merchants' Quay - the only reason to venture to the docks in the evening.

There isn't a huge choice of pubs , the best are all within spitting distance of the Cross. The rambling fifteenth-century New Inn in Northgate Street has a good atmosphere, a splendid galleried courtyard and cheap meals, but for really tasty hot food at rock-bottom prices go to the Fountain Inn , down a narrow alley off Westgate Street, this pub pulls a sublime pint of Abbot ale and has tables in an olde-worlde adjacent courtyard - ideal for a sunny day.