The Knowhere Guide

Eating and Drinking in Bristol, Bristol*

Bristol, Bristol Pubs, Cafes, Coffee Shops and Restaurants

Food

• Las Tascas
• Balti-Hut.. the wickedest funniest curry house in bristol!
• Renatos sells good pizzas and a few other italian dishes, jsut down from th eold vic.
• Bocanova (brazilian/italian flavours) at the top of Colston Street where it meets Park Row. Possibly the freshest and tastiest food you can eat in the South West - chefs who work there prove nosh can be an art and they're a well happy bunch too.
• Best Chips - New Territory, off whiteladies nr Sainsburys, thick roast potato like chips!
• Forget eating out in Bristol, neither bad nor good. Depressing mediocrity here but in 2001 many swear by Teohs Oriental in St Pauls near M32. London competition makes it better and much cheaper than Bristol. Best kept Secret on Saturdays is the open air pavement BBQ out on by the Butcher opposite Bristol North Baths, Gloucester Road. No other Bristol place seems to know how to do hamburgers properly to the standards of Walcot St Schwarz in Bath
• Cattlemans - The Triangle - If you ignore the decor, paper napkins and prob most of the clientel it does a great T-bone chips and mushrooms!
• Triangle Kebab House - Turkish for "May I take your order, Sir": "(shouted) YAS MAT!"
• MR PANGS EASTON BRISTOL
• New Emperor Court-Clifton Village set meals bit pricey but food & Ginseng beer the tops.Lovely staff Byzantium-avoid starters in bird cages bloody awful,fantastic decor ground floor and main courses make up for starters River Station-location and food great.best when its on exes or someone else paying,but hey isnt everywher?!
• Quartier Vert, Whiteladies Road is the best for Tapas and fine French cooking.
• Pretty dire. Big lack of good ethnic restaurants near Station
• Cathay Rendezvous -excellent chinese food,
• let's face it - pizza prov. is SHITE (sorry labour voters, you know how it is) try the hotdog man outside st. nicks - he's cool, and surprisingly clean, i thought too
• Jade Dragon Palace, Westons Way, Kingswood. Sublime chinese food, much better than any in London, in the most surprising suburban location.
• Macdonalds
• mini-market for sandwiches and pies
• Too much choice - try Mud Dock, River Station (both on The Grove); Belgo (Welsh Back) if Belgian Grub and beer are your things; Glasnost (William St, Totterdown) is up there with the best Montpellier can offer... Blue Goose (Gloucester Rd) is another good un.
• Eric's Cafe is a very nice establishment. It provides good quality food at reasonable prices. It is situated along a side street 'Small Street' of the city centre - around the corner to the White Lion Pub (follow signs). Open weekdays and Saturday.
• Casa Mexicana
• Sergio's on Frogmore Street is great; pasta is fresh and they always have at least one extravagant (read fattening) dessert. And they are open late.
• Cool Place To Eat: Mickeyfins near Hippodrome. Great place for a cheap bite to eat before clubbing!
• The Arnolfini is worth an honourable mention. It's quite pricey, but has a wide range of beers, wines and the biggest selection of vodkas, and does excellent food (veggie and non-veggie). Great when the weather's good, as there's plenty of outside seating by the docks.
• You forgot a section on Cafes [but this section started out with cafes in fact, and was only taken over by upmarket establishments after the move on line], and if you decide to add one then I nominate The Friary at the top of the list: The Friary is on Cotham Hill, nearly opposite X Music, and does the most amazing breakfasts in Bristol (even better than the York Cafe). Friendly (and good looking) staff, great atmosphere and certainly a place to spend your Sunday mornings.
• Pizza Provencale in Clifton. Worth a visit. Excellent service and great food. No booking on a Friday or Saturday. - But see the argument in the "Best and Worst" section.
• The Bristolian is not the place to eat, now that, just down the road, the old Caf du Daphne has re-opened as Caf Tasca. Yes siree - good veggie, but check that Portuguese fish soup ... Just behind is the legendary Herbert's bakery. Simple building, extraordinary bread at bakery-direct prices causes long queues at certain times... a good reason to moving to this part of Bristol...
• The Bristolian - Not cheap, but the place to eat.
• The Missing Piece - FREE food on City road.

Pubs

• hatchet
• E-shed, the little red bar underneath the watershed has djs everynight and the music policy tends to keep the 'shirt boys' out. oh, and we show snowboarding and skating videos most evenings.. when our projector is working!
• The Hatchet This is Bristol's oldest pub and 50 yds from the Mandrake. You can get wasted In the Hatch til 2pm! It's the place most rockers go to b4 the club's But its getting a bit trendy now, the new owners want it a bit wine barey but we wont be moved form our pub- It will be a rock pub forever!
• artichoke is wkd in summer , commercial rooms always cheap and thebarkley on pk st!
• Best pubs tend to be hidden away.eg. The Cadbury - Montpelier, Cosies - St Pauls, price of entry seems to go up threefold every time I go there and music is now very loud, however still original and v. laid back. The Prince Of Wales - Cheltenham Rd - full of friendly leering locals and last but not least - The Hillgrove - Class just off nine tree hill and it has Pool and good ale.
• The Bell (Jamaica Street)
• Bristol pubs mostly all ruined by 2001, tastless swirly carpet, plastic head banging noise etc except for the excellent Highbury Vaults, Bag of Nails, and best of all, no frills, beer award winning Kellaway Arms,(2 miles north of centre) in the Good Beer Guide 10 years running. It boasts a full green garden with rabbit
• The Park - The Triangle - new bar owned by James Savage & Ben Dubuisson - good tunes , loads of women if you can get past Savage harrassing them! Savage even does the hoovering
• The Wellington (aka. The Boots), Glouscester Rd and Muller Rd junction.
• The Cadbury and The Bell are great. And may i take the opportunity to point out that Browns is the largest pile of pretentious wank that i have ever come across.
• glouceter rd is good for pubs and bars ie. the Cellar other good places are the Black Swan - Easton, The Star and Garter - Montpelier, The farm - St Werburghs, the E-shed is okay for later drinking so is renatos.
• BAR MET IN BRISTOL FULL OF PERVY OLD MEN LOOKING AT GIRLS THAT YOUNG ENOUGTH TO BE THEIR DAUGHTERS.
• The Robin Hood on St Michael's Hill. Best pub in Bristol by a long way - manages to avoid wanker students AND the kevs & tracys WITHOUT the hinderance of being bored to death by OAPs.
• Channings-Garden for Summer and great on a sunday indoors to recover or carry on all night session Browns-Bar area and steps good to meet friends .You always see most of Clifton walk by on a sunny afternoon.good selection bottled beers Square Bar-members bar but hang outside as members can get 3 guests in and youll be rewarded with waitress service to your sofa good food 1am licence good looking crowd that normally ends up in Browns,Ponana,Dojo bar or Fine line Coronation Tap-only ever been with express purpose of getting anihalated on halves of exhibition on prelude to pub crawls,guaranteed to prime you to become v annoying anywhere else you go afterwards and your vomit is a satisfying dark red.Either its the exhibition or stomach lining but dont get it on your trainers
• Horts in Broad Street, but for more info look at http://www.leggless.com
• Go to Edwards if you believe yourself to be a highly respected, intelligent twentysomething because you wear a shirt and tie everyday when in reality you have a smattering of poor GCSEs, don't understand the concept of not speaking in monosyllables and seem not to notice that you generally behave in an arrogant and obnoxious way. Thatcher's runts.
• The Cadbury House and the Star and Garter. I can't believe no one had put these in before!
• The Old Duke -great for Jazz and Blues
• The Lamb, Cadbury Heath. If suicidal, merely enter and shout "I love Bristol City". Death is instantaneous.
• The frog and toad - £1 a pint on wednesdays!
• edwards , slug and lettuce and rsvp are the best... well in my opinion... you can swap between the threee al night and are garaunteed to find loads of people you know in there ... some real characters in bristol and you'll find most of them in edwards on a weekend!
• White Hart Berkley Hatchet
• Highbury Vaults in Cotham, dark dingy what more could you want, (cheaper beer its nearly 2UKP these days) The Clyde, it's in Clifton/Redland but can you see any students? thought not.
• the seven ways swan with two necks sportsmans arms
• Naval Volunteer (King St) has just had a million quid spent on it - you can imagine the result. No more Bass straight from the barrel. Central Bristol has the usual predictable run of Wetherspoons, All Bar One, Edward's etc. If you want somewhere a bit different (where you can hear yourself think), try The Hare on The Hill (Kinsdown) or the Bag O' Nails (Jacob's Wells Rd/Hotwells Rd)
• If you want a fight, go to the Hen and Chicken in North Street
• The Hope and Anchor, Jacobs Well Road - lovely pub, weird pint glasses!
• Horn and Trumpet next to the Hippodrome is one of the best atmospheres on a weekend. For a quieter night, try the Brewery Tap at the bottom of St Michael's Hill, or the Highbury Vaults at the top.
• The Kensington Arms pub on Kensington Road in Redland. Serves Smiles and other good beers, has cool bar staff and friendly atmosphere.
• Bass Pump House on Sundays.
• If you like beer, the Naval Volunteer on King Street has about 20 real ales to choose from every night.
• The best thing in Bristol is finishing work at 6pm & diving in to a bloody huge & teeth chatteringly cold Citron Martini at Henry Africas Hothouse. The worst thing in Bristol is falling off the bar stool after you have had two.

Cafes and Coffee Shops

• boston tea party?
• The Bristolian in Montpellier - organic and free range funkiness
• Must go there! Boston Tea Party - no offers smoke free environment and cheap meals on a Tuesday, yum.
• Starbucks- expensive but very nice and the compyist chairs in the world there are 2 in bristol 1 by the industrial complex and one up park street the boston tee party- v cool place to eat, drink and be merry up park street over priced nice garden to lots and lots or small coffe shops and themed cafe's/resterants skate shops surf shops up park street and the ever popular spa for you underage smokers to buy cig's and everyone to buy ne thing
• Baristas (centre), Boston Tea Party (Park Street THE ORIGINAL CHILL), Cosies, NOT Starbucks
• Brunel Buttery on Docks is an institution - try the Bacon and Egg Butty
• York Cafe, Clifton. Disgusting food and full of students who think that this is "real life" and are therefore happy to part with the taxpayer's cash (or Daddy's) for inedible crap.
• Joe Cubas the place to be in Bristol for a coffee
• Rocotillos-good fryups but their fucking plates are a joke -just bigger than saucers so food ends up all over tables.If sitting in booths helps if your under 6 foot as they are designed on the same basis as their plates-Fucking small.Shame cos milk shakes are great. Cha-T shop staff totally disintersted and vexpensive. Pret a manger-good sarnies and lattes and if you get a window seat you can eye up passing talent.Manager is annoyingly cheerful if I want a cabaret Ill ask for it,just serve me my order and cut the chat! Bensons-Henleaze simply superb River Station-Ground floor top coffee &location Severnshed-v quiet in mornings good to get your head together in peace on the waterfront
• Loads of mediocre ones all over the city.
• The Naffeteria on Gloucester Rd serves the best coffee in Bristol. Food is good too.
• boston tea party is waccamundo, lol, and starbucks!!!!
• we lament the passing of doc peps nr. st nicks market R.I.P. no-one at the old vic has got anything to eat now!
• Boston Tea Party - park street. Very bohemian, with poetry readings, big sofas and good coffee Students - the refectory, woodland rd, the definative student hang out
• Bristol Coffe Company - Gloucester road. Lovely atmosphere, you'll probably like it if you're a student but'll get some looks....
• lunch box on west st

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Last updated: 2008-04-21