A warm welcome awaits in busy boozer that’s worth talking about

We were en route to GlasGlow, the brilliantly atmospheric sound and light installation at Botanic Gardens.

From the street, The Belle gave off its own light and sound show – an inviting glow and lively buzz, like in the old beer adverts for McEwan’s and Tennent’s in the 80s.

Pub Spy’s dad ran a bar for years before the smoking ban and when it was busy, the condensation would draw the nicotine from the wallpaper.

It’s as well for The Belle that the only smoke inside is from the fire, judging by the clouds on the windows.

Space is tight here, so we table-surfed, joining another pair of pals who’d come in from the cold.

There’s usually an open coal fire burning in The Belle. It’s that kind of place – like a country bothy in the city. But our table mates told us it had burned out earlier in the evening. The place was so busy, staff didn’t bother to relight it.

The Belle is a modest wee hole situated at the foot of Hillhead’s hill, the sort of place you could walk past on a mission to hit up big bevvy barns like Oran Mor and Coopers and not pay a second glance.

It’s an unsung Glasgow gem, with kombucha on draft, if fermented green tea is your thing. There’s no food – apart from crisps, nuts and Tunnock’s tea cakes – and it’s another dog-friendly joint but with hardly enough space to swing a cat. More than a couple of mutts and a place this size will feel like the kennels and they don’t allow them after 7pm as drunks and dugs don’t always go.

The decor is a homely and eclectic mish-mash of brass-rimmed mirrors, higgelty-piggelty pictures, plants and a glass brick wall stealing light into otherwise dusky surroundings.

It’s a vibe vaguely reminiscent of the lamented Uisge Beatha, once the best bar in the west end before it was stripped out and sanitised.

And not just because of the jumbly style of the place.

We ended up talking to students about dialects in Scotland, to the man from Manchester who regularly stays in a B&B next door and considers The Belle the hotel bar, and a mysterious guy who claimed to have dated a movie star after a couple of bottles.

When space is this tight, you can’t avoid conversation and in these days of couples and friends spending time together tapping on their phones, any pub which has the power to get people talking is the kind of place worth drinking in.

Be prepared to make new friends, if even just for one drink.