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Bristol has more restaurants per capita than London.
There's no denying it, we love eating out. Whilst there are still plenty of
restaurants that I've to visit, here are the highlights:
Juniper
A lovely restaurant on Cotham Brow that serves food without any theme other than
it is simply delicious. The portions are neither generous nor meagre. The food
is high on taste and fresh ingredients, used in inventive combinations. The menu
is always changing, so I can't recommend. It's all good. Simply divine. Cost
without drink, about £15/head for two courses.
Glasnost
If this gem wasn't hidden away in Totterdown, it would have a waiting
list longer than the current 1-2 week one. Booking is absolutely necessary.
You'll be rewarded by a cosy atmosphere and good, hearty food with huge amounts
of veggies to share. Main courses are better than the fairly good starters.
Around £18/head for two courses. They have a mailing list (for their monthly
menu) and offer 10% off on certain days if you return.
A Cozinhas
Friendly Portugese family affair in Kingsdown. Fantastic atmosphere.
Visit it for the house speciality - a spectacular cauldron of seafood and meat
for two. Enough said. Around £18/head for two courses.
The Balti Hut
Reliably good Indian restaurant in the vault of a town house off the top
of Park Street. Very friendly service. Starters, main course and tips always
manage to skim under £10. Will usually have a table for two available, but book
if there are more.
Anthem
A warren of little rooms on St Michael's Hill. A 'feel-good' eaterie
serving good food with plenty of choice for the discerning vegetarian. Around
£15/head
Las Iguanas
Very unpredictable depending on the cook and staff, but when it's good
it's really good. Go weekday to avoid the Whiteladies Road crush. And check out
the early-evening deals (£5 for one course, £6 for two, £7 for three). Duck
fajitas are great and unusual.
Renatos
I don't know about the restaurant (also on King Street), but the taverna
opposite does the best garlic bread I have ever eaten and serves until it closes
(around 2pm). Closed August. Around £2.50 for a 10" garlic bread.
Aqua
Not particularly exciting food, but generous proportions and reasonable
quality. The starters are particularly good. This restaurant gets points for
catering for all tastes, making it good for 'work dos'. Around £12/head if you
order before 7pm from a selected menu. Service is very reluctant. Wheelchair
accessible.
La Tasca
La Tasca is a blend of everything good about Spain – taking
the best of Spanish style, cuisine and hospitality to give you and your party a
real taste of Spain. Above all, La Tasca is about Tapas.
Here at La Tasca in the heart of Bristol, we have seating for 270 on two floors,
with a buffet menu and exclusive use of a fully serviced bar.
Groups: Stag and Hen groups welcome. We can normally accommodate any size
of party from 8-80, subject to availability – we will do our best to accommodate
you.
Prices: Party menu from £13.50 per person. No deposit required on
booking.
Rules of Engagement: Have fun, but respect the other diners in the
restaurant. No strippers allowed. Some restrictions on fancy dress – call to
confirmation
Markwicks 
Yum yum! Every meal we've had here has been absolutely fantastic. It might cost
you a little bit more than its rivals (although sticking to the set-menu will
help), but the expense is well worth it in our opinion.
Harveys
Absolutely amazing food, service & interior. Faultless. A fantastic foodie
experience. Unfortunately a special offer like the last one (which brought the
price down from astronomical levels to a very reasonable 30 pounds per head) is
the only way we'd consider going there again.
Sukoshi
At last, GOOD sushi in Bristol! (Sorry, Budokan, you lose a star).
Sukoshi's big and chunky pieces are far superior to Budokan's (which appear to
have been picked up from a Tesco or M&S chill cabinet). Unfortunately, like
Budokan, there still isn't all that much variety on offer. We had a couple of
mixed plates of sushi and one of tempura, plus miso soup and green tea for 12
pounds each (once some confusion over our bill was worked out); excellent food
and excellent value. Sukoshi also describes itself as a champagne bar. If you
can afford it. The decor, with water trickling down the wall and behind the bar,
is quite entertaining too (although you have to wonder whether it'll go green
and slimy after a while).
Wagamamma
The restaurant Budokan cloned
finally arrives in Bristol, and very good it is too: delicious soups, tasty
fried rice/noodle dishes, and a selection of interesting starters. The main
courses are cheaper than Budokan, although maybe the portions aren't as big. A
great place for a quick feed.
Sawadee Thai Restaurant
This new restaurant follows the pan-Asian formula pioneered by Teohs, with the
menu featuring Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Malaysian, Indian, Laosean, Vietnamese,
Korean, Singaporean, Indonesian and Burmese dishes for a flat rate of £5.99.
What's more, the food is even better than Teohs (although we'll have to
wait and see whether it stays that way; new Asian places seem to have a habit of
going downhill after a few months).
Ying's Thai Takeaway
An ordinary looking takeaway on Gloucester Road, but with plenty of seating,
really good food (especially the green curry), and friendly service. Many of the
dishes are available in a vegetarian form. (However, our vegie friend thought
his dish was rather too oily, perhaps due to the fried tofu.) It's also a BYO
(with Bottom's Up not far away), and the staff are at your table with glasses
and bottle openers instantly. Excellent value-for-money.
Teohs
A sort of budget Budokan (but without the fancy lighting or sushi). The menu has
a Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Malaysian & "Specialist" column, each with six items
(and each with the same price of £4.95). We thought the noodle dishes (Pad Thai
Noodle, Yakisoba, Chicken with Fried Rice Vermicelli, Singapore Curry Laksa)
were all absolutely outstanding and the equal of anything Budokan offers. On the
other hand the Gado Gado was rather uninspiring. While there are no explict
vegetarian items, just about any of the chicken based dishes (which is most of
them, as there is no beef or pork on offer here) can substitute tofu instead,
and our vegetarian friends are as enthusiastic about this place as we are. Now
operates a "sittings" system at weekends, and booking would be advisable most
days of the week. They also do takeaways.
Red Snapper
Mainly fishy menu served in a minimalist but stylish setting. Yummy food, pretty
presentation, tasty sauces. Rather expensive and not much good for veggies (ie
only one choice for starters and main course).
Heatherleys
Unpretentious little eating place with nicely presented food in a cosy setting
(similar in scale to Red Snapper). Pleasant but unexceptional.
Cathay Rendezvous
To us, all Chinese restaurants seem to serve up pretty much identical food, so
it's hard to say why this one is our favourite in Bristol (or at least it was
until Tatyans appeared). It used to have a window looking into the kitchen, but
this was covered up on our last visit.
Mandarin
The usual Chinese fodder (which is exactly what you're in the mood for after a
couple of cocktails in Bar Humbug) whose best point is that the set menu (the
'B' one anyway) actually contains stuff you want to eat: namely crispy duck (and
lots of it!), sweet and sour pork, chicken and black bean sauce, crispy beef,
the usual boring veg and some rice. A seriously large quantity of food for £16 a
head!
Blue Goose
Not a place to go if you have a huge appetite! The food is good enough, but the
fact is that there just isn't that much of it; an impression amplified by the
huge plates the pretty but insubstantial portions are served on. Still,
it's definitely a bit slicker than, say, Hullabaloo's, although much of the food
still has that "here's a slice of something we made earlier" quality. Note that
it's invariably a participant in the Evening Post or Venue's two-for-one cheap
eats deals, so it's worth waiting for one of those to come round again.
Budokan
A similar formula to Wagamama: fast oriental noodles. You'll probably be in and
out in 40 minutes: this isn't somewhere to build an evening out around. The main
courses seem to be rather more expensive than Wagamama, but we thought the
portions were bigger and the food a bit more interesting too. Before 7pm there
is a cheap "Rapid Refuel" option which at first glance looks good value, but
actually the portions are so small you'd probably need to eat two of them before
your stomach noticed. Unfortunately the standard of service in Budokan seems to
have slipped somewhat, with overworked waitresses making it clear that your
requests are a huge inconvenience. There are now two Budokan's in Bristol; we
haven't visited the one in Clifton for years, but when we did it was pretty much
identical to the one behind the Colston Hall.
Thai Palace
Thai food. Portions a little on the small size, nothing special. Perhaps us
being virtually the only customers in the large basement dining area didn't help
our impression.
Boston Tea Party
This Park Street cafe started doing food last year, but since it's
normally rather smoky inside it didn't strike us as a particularly appealing
place to eat. However, it was recently included in the Evening Post's usual
yearly cheap-eats deal, so we thought we'd give it a try. Unusually, what we
were offered there was apparently the full-on standard menu, rather than a cut
down one such as many restaurants offer those taking advantage of their Evening
Post tokens; The Boston Tea Party are certainly to be applauded for this.
However, having said that, the menu didn't actually offer a great deal of choice
(two starters, one of which was soup, three main courses, one of which was
vegetarian, but numerous deserts from the collection of cakes in the Cafe). The
dining area was pleasant enough (and not smoky at all, as we had feared) but
perhaps rather dimly lit, and the service was friendly and pleasant. The main
strength of the food here appears to be quantity; portions were certainly on the
generous side (the leftovers from a neighboring table's cheese platter desert
would have restocked our fridge for a month). The downside was that it just
wasn't very inspiring. The deserts were definitely the highlight of the meal
(and you can just go in the cafe for those anyway). At seven pounds a head (plus
wine) for three courses we considered our meal to be very good value. However,
for sixteen pounds (the usual rate), we'd have been extremely disappointed.
I mourn for 'The New Mayflower' - Bristol's best Chinese that was destroyed in a
fire recently. Trying to fill the gap, there is the expensive Dynasty that at
least serves Dim Sum.
Don't even darken the step of Hullaballoos. Uninventive menu and poor-quality
food.
Meanwhile - I'll continue the search!
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