I have found the perfect place to carbo-load during the Olympics. With a menu featuring a chip butty, a three-cheese ­toastie and shoestring fries with parmesan salt and tomato sauce, you can maximise your muscle glycogen stores with ease, ­particularly useful before endurance events such as tomorrow’s women’s marathon and next weekend’s men’s 42km canter.

The newly opened Brisbane gastropub (sounds like an after-effect of falling in the ocean in Rio) Hope & Anchor in inner-west Paddington’s Given Tce is the latest project by Jamie Webb and Simon Shearer, who ­established Sonny’s House of Blues in the CBD and Lefty’s Old Time Music Hall and Ginger’s Diner just a spud’s throw away up the road in Caxton St. The Hope & ­Anchor is in a heritage building that most recently housed The Lark, then the Shingle Inn. It was constructed in 1888 as a bakery, and the new fitout shows off the original fireplace and brick walls and teams them with leather banquettes, wooden ­tables and a warm, low-light vibe.

The ground floor is small, with much of floor taken up by the bar – where you also order the food – but there is plenty of ­additional seating in an annex to one side, on the footpath and upstairs. Service isvery personable but there was something of a crush around the bar at times.

It’s not all ye olde English pub fare, ­though there are several old-school treats on the menu, which is divided into snacks/small bites and main courses. Our panko-crumbed fish fingers ($9) were rigid enough to use as relay batons and were just-right sidekicks to a drink, as were the luscious devils on horseback ($8), last seen on a menu in 1974.

The drinks list includes an array of cocktails, a shortish, well-priced wine list with a reasonable array by the glass, and an interesting selection of cider and beer including a Balter Alt Brown from Mick Fanning’s Currumbin brewery among those on tap.

Of the mains, minute steak with peppercorn sauce, shoestring fries and salad ($25) went well with a glass of perfectly decent house red ($6), an Adelaide Hills shiraz. The half baby chicken with truffled sausage gravy and Dutch cream mash ($25) was also excellent, rib-lining winter ­comfort food. Desserts are chocolate mousse with malted whipped cream and our choice, drunk orange cake with mascarpone (both $9). It was a decent enough slice of cake, ­although it could have done with being drunker, or perhaps a drenching in syrup to ramp up the moisture.

Hope & Anchor is an all-purpose bolt­hole for a drink, a lunchtime sandwich or a hearty evening meal, and seems on track to be a winner.

This review originally appeared on couriermail.com.au.