For some time a new wave of creative cooking has been sweeping through Bristol. The presence of two Michelin-starred restaurants with surely more to come is a sign of its increasing impact on the British food scene, but the city’s cultural diversity, strong belief in sustainable ethics (locally sourced food is a given) and the locals’ passionate support of independent businesses has also been the driving force for something quite special.
What’s more, there seems to be a refreshing camaraderie between the city’s chefs, restaurateurs and suppliers in a bid to enhance and promote the city’s foodie credentials.
From the city’s star players, some classy all-rounders and a few excellent hotel restaurants to the delicious and varied street food of St Nicholas Market and Tobacco Factory Market, Bristol has all the bases covered. It’s a constantly changing scene too, with ever-more new additions each year – recent arrivals to the city’s dining scene include: Six By Nico in Quakers Friars (affordable, themed, six-course tasting menus), Lapin (a contemporary French restaurant from the team behind Bank in Totterdown) and Ragu (offering Italian sharing plates from the owners of Cor).
Frankie’s popular chicken and waffles pop-up is now operating from Kask on North Street, while the old fire station on Silver Street will soon be the permanent home of Jikoni East Africa.
All our recommendations below have been hand-selected and tested by our resident destination expert to help you discover the best restaurants in Bristol. Find out more below, or for more inspiration, see our guides to the city’s best hotels, nightlife and things to do. If planning a longer trip, explore our guide to the perfect holiday in Somerset.
Find a restaurant by type:Best all-roundersAdelina Yard
Chefs Jamie Randall and Olivia Barry intend to “challenge the tastebuds” with their cooking at Adelina Yard, which is now in its tenth year. Overlooking the quay, in unpretentious surroundings and a semi L-shaped room with part copper painted walls and similar hued light shades, the pair emphasises their belief in using seasonal ingredients in their modern, multi-inspired cooking. Their diverse tasting menus are hugely imaginative. The chef’s table seat overlooks the open kitchen; the four-course lunch for £43 is great value (Wed-Sat).
Area: Welsh Back
Website: adelinayard.com
Price: ££
Reservations: Essential
The chefs at Adelina Yard have been concocting creative, seasonal dishes for a decade
Marmo
Sophisticated and bright, set behind the grand entrance of the former Guardian Assurance building, Marmo continues to impress in the hands of owners Lily and Cosmo Sterck. With an osteria and wine bar style (and an open kitchen), it offers a compact Italian-based menu focusing on seasonality and sustainability with imaginative small-plate dishes such as ox cheek with risotto Milanese and skate, mash, agretti and capers to the bolder pig’s head and scamorza on grilled bread. There’s a strong European-based wine list too and a snug wine bar downstairs too.
Area: Old City
Website: marmo.restaurant
Price: ££
Reservations: Advisable in the evening
Marmo’s grand setting and imaginative small plates continue to impress
COR
North Street is becoming something of a destination in Bristol with its restaurants, bars and great cheese shop. COR just adds to the experience with its terrific small plate sharing menu. Easy to spot with its distinctive red frontage, this perfectly formed restaurant offers dishes such as slow-cooked ox cheek, crispy polenta, 30-month parmesan and salsa verde or the superb crispy Jerusalem artichoke, velouté, truffled pecorino. There’s a great set lunch too, and they often have some exceptional wines by the glass.
Area: Bedminster
Website: correstaurant.com
Price: ££
Reservations: Yes, for dinner
Back to index
Best for familiesPasta Ripiena/Cotto
Part of the city’s ultra-reliable Bianchis group, Pasta Ripiena is intimate and fun, with an open kitchen that serves superb stuffed pasta dishes (emphasising Italian and Spanish ingredients), such as a ravioli of beetroot and ricotta. Next door, Cotto, which doubles as a wine bar and kitchen, is more of a cantina with classic Italian dishes (home-cooking style) washed down with a robust bottle of red – think wild boar gnocchi or Cornish crab and mussels. They also have Bianchis in Montpelier.
Area: Old City
Website: pastaripiena.co.uk; cottowinebarandkitchen.co.uk
Price: ££
Reservations: In the evening
Pasta Ripiena and Cotto are part of the ever-reliable Bianchis group
Noah’s
On Spike Island, you’ll find a cute fish restaurant with disarmingly elevated food run by the family behind the highly regarded Scallop Shell in Bath. Don’t be put off by the fact that it resides under a flyover and instead take in its position overlooking Cumberland Basin, its bright cabin-style design and the impressive selection of freshly caught fish or shellfish from the south coast (try the Cornish ray wing, if it’s on the menu, or the half Dorset lobster). There are grilled or fried options, and, yes, there is fish and chips too; the Lock Keeper’s Lunch or Tea are both good value and are served with a cuppa. Grab a table overlooking the water, or on the pretty terrace at the back.
Area: Spike Island
Website: noahsbristol.co.uk
Price: ££
Reservations: Advisable
If possible, opt to try a dish from Noah’s selection of freshly caught fish from the south coast
The Granary
Opened in late 2023 and housed in a red brick, 19th-century Byzantine-style former grain house, The Granary is an admirable, all-day addition to the area. The ground floor is home to the Mediterranean-themed restaurant with bright pastel-painted walls and a locally sourced menu featuring dishes such as kofta and sea bass fillet with quinoa tabbouleh. Good breakfasts too. Downstairs you’ll find the Granary Club offering a nod to when the premises was a renowned rock venue, which for 20 years from 1968, hosted the likes of Iron Maiden, Status Quo and The Stranglers. Now a bar, it stages occasional DJ sets and jazz evenings. For Only Fools And Horses fans this is where the famous scene of Del falling through an open bar top was filmed.
Area: Welsh Back
Website: granarybristol.com; thegranaryclub.com
Price: ££
Reservations: Yes, in the evening
Back to index
Best for fine diningBulrush
George Livesey, who has had associations with the likes of Club Gascon and St John in London, now has this delightful and very relaxed restaurant – set on two floors in a former greengrocer’s – and deservedly a Michelin star. The restaurant may be small but the Anglo/French dishes are wonderfully ambitious with a tasting menu including, perhaps, barbecued monkfish with yuzu kosho, Champagne and mussel sauce or Anjou pigeon, morels, asparagus and black pudding.
Area: Cotham
Website: bulrushrestaurant.co.uk
Price: £££
Reservations: Essential
Bulrush is small but makes up for it with an ambitious and perfectly executed tasting menu
1 York Place
Bristol-born chef Freddy Bird has already set the bar pretty high with his terrific LittleFrench restaurant in Westbury Park and its wonderful, unpretentious regional cuisine, but his more recent venture with his wife Nessa more than equals its success. Bright, compact and set over two levels and with the air of a classy bistro, 1 York Place (which used to house an old school greasy spoon) offers wildly imaginative European food (think Spain, Italy and Portugal) and wine with a carefully crafted menu, which might take in lobster and wild prawn blini, crispy fried mussels or Pyrenean lamb; even the homemade bread and butter is exceptional; they also do an excellent Sunday brunch. It really is quite special.
Area: Clifton
Website: 1yorkplace.co.uk; littlefrench.co.uk
Price: ££
Reservations: Recommended
1 York Place is a classy bistro with wonderfully imaginative pan-European fare
Dongnae
This Korean wonder has quickly established itself as a go-to restaurant with its hugely imaginative food and minimal design (all hardwood and white decor with an open kitchen behind a slatted screen). It’s the brainchild of husband and wife/chef team Duncan Robertson and Kyu Jeon, who made their name in the city with the more casual Bokman in Stokes Croft. Authenticity is the key (the kimchi, for instance, is fermented in-house) and you might find salted jellyfish on the menu. There are small plate, à la carte and charcoal grill options; the shiksha (with rice cooked in a clay plot) is a good option, but for a true taste of the country, go for the hanjeongsik menu (£85); terrific wine list too.
Area: Redland
Website: dongnae.co.uk
Price: ££
Reservations: Recommended
Already a local phenomenon, Dongnae brings together authentic Korean cuisine and minimalist design
Wilsons
Behind an attractive stained-glass sign, the unostentatious, simply styled decor of Wilsons gives little hint as to the wonders of the cooking at Mary Wilson and Jan Ostle’s small restaurant, lately the recipient of a coveted Michelin star. With rickety tables and chairs, an open kitchen, pretty flowers on the bar and blackboard denoting the day’s menu, the restaurant styles itself as an English bistro and the emphasis is very much on British cuisine. Ostle concocts “elegant but basic” dishes – you really do get value here and it’s clear a lot of love and thought has gone into the cooking; the veg and herbs come from their own market garden. If on the menu, try the roe deer, which may well have been shot locally by Ostle. Check out the restaurant’s Bread Shop (open Wednesday to Sunday) for its pastries and bacon Hokkaido rolls.
Area: Redland
Website: wilsonsrestaurant.co.uk
Price: £££
Reservations: Essential
Back to index
Best for walk-insMugshot
If it’s a steak you are after, then Mugshot is the place, and what’s more you can cook it at your table on a hot (300 degrees) lava stone. The narrow, speak-easy style of the restaurant together with the wood-panelled walls and dark green velvet banquettes highlights the atmosphere as you tuck into single or sharing steaks (take on the 35oz caveman boeuf, if you must) cooked in wide choice of butters and with a selection of sauces. Just a few doors down (6-8 St Nicholas Street) is Mugshot’s other venture, The Library – a tea parlour in the afternoon and cocktail lounge by night.
Area: Old City
Website: mugshotrestaurants.com
Price: ££
Reservations: At weekends
Mugshot offers a formidable selection of steaks, butters and sauces
Kibou Japanese Kitchen & Bar
Whether it is the handmade sushi, the bowls of ramen, tempura, wagyu beef or the soft bao buns, Kibou is a worthy addition to the Clifton restaurant scene. There are six outlets in the Kibou brand (Cheltenham and London, among them) and Bristol’s iteration is set over two colourfully decorated floors (bold prints and geisha murals); an intricate burgundy Japanese acer tree also weaves itself up and around the first-floor windows, which look out over Clifton Village. Make sure to head to the cocktail bar first, where you’ll also find a huge selection of whiskies.
Area: Clifton
Website: kibou.co.uk
Price: ££
Reservations: Not necessary
Head to Kibou in Clifton for Japanese big-hitters, specialist cocktails and whiskies
Nutmeg
Think you know your Indian food? You might have to reconsider when you visit Nutmeg, which aims to capture the full flavour and culinary diversity of all of India’s states – and not just the usual favourites. In the rarified surroundings of Clifton and with a boldly styled interior (check out the brightly stencilled mural), the two floors of Nutmeg offer a welcome and imaginative take on the sub-continent’s cuisine. You won’t see mango chutney on the menu but you will find beef madras and pork cheek vindaloo, with many of the ingredients are locally sourced. There is a sister restaurant, Nutmeg Street Kitchen, in the city centre on St Augustine’s Parade.
Area: Clifton
Website: nutmegbristol.com
Price: ££
Reservations: Not necessary
Back to index
Best for cheap eatsRoot
Root is another of the stars of Wapping Wharf. It stretches to five containers with floor-to-ceiling windows and a hotchpotch of distressed design from glossy green tiles to an egg carton effect around the bar/kitchen. Vegetables are the thing here (although a couple of fish dishes are on the menu). What chef Rob Howell produces is extraordinarily clever – who knew that beetroot, which might be served with blueberries, hazelnut and seaweed, could look so beautiful and be so appetising? Hardly a surprise that what’s on the menu is dictated to by the seasons. There is now a sister restaurant in Wells, Somerset.
Area: Wapping Wharf
Website: rootbristol.co.uk
Price: £
Reservations: Recommended
Vegetables are the star at Root, but the meat and fish are also superb when they make a (season appropriate) appearance
Budapest Cafe
A Hungarian breakfast in Bristol? That’s what is on offer at the Budapest Cafe on Alma Vale Road, a delightful family run café that brings a little bit of Eastern Europe to the city. Simply decorated with watercolours and vintage metal signs, the food is what it’s all about – try the delicious Hungarian lecho, baked eggs with a tomato, pepper, potato and chorizo stew served with sourdough bread. For lunch there’s a goulash (naturally) and other options include pork schnitzel and Hungarian hot dog. On Saturdays and Sundays, the afternoon tea includes Hungarian cakes.
Area: Clifton
Website: budapestcafe.co.uk
Price: £
Reservations: Not necessary
Family-run Budapest Cafe brings feel-good Hungarian classics and cakes to Bristol
Caribbean Croft
Reflecting the diversity of the city, Caribbean Croft is an instantly inviting cookhouse and bar. Deceptively spacious with a long bar, it shows off its credentials with reggae soundtracks, bright adverts on the wall for Red Stripe and Appleton Estate rum and local artwork. Run by the hands-on owner Peter Innes, the food is a major draw with homespun dishes reflecting the swathe of Caribbean islands, from Jamaica to Trinidad and Barbados. Slip swiftly into the spirit by tucking into curried goat or ackee saltfish and one of the 72 types of rum.
Area: Stokes Croft
Website: caribbeancroft.co.uk
Price: £
Reservations: Recommended in the evening
Back to index
Best for a Sunday roastSS Great Britain
For something truly evocative, the former first-class dining saloon of the SS Great Britain is hard to beat. The ship, which took passengers from Liverpool to New York in the mid-1800s, offers a three-course roast on most Sundays. Sit on the unusual red velvet “flip” benches at long, communal dining tables in a wood-panelled room with its elaborate gold-leaf copped columns and imagine you are back in the Victorian era steaming to the US. There are a couple of starter and dessert options with roast beef or chicken and vegetarian options for the main course.
Area: Harbourside
Website: ssgreatbritain.org
Price: ££
Reservations: Essential
Dine in mid-19th century transatlantic opulence aboard the SS Great Britain
The Square Club
In leafy Berkeley Square, the Square Club is a private members club with rooms, whose restaurant is open to non-members. And where better to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon, especially if you choose the option of a table on the pretty, plant and tree-festooned terrace. Set in a former Georgian residence, the art-lined walls and funky video installation in the lobby/bar set the tone, while the menu veers towards a British theme; the Sunday roast (from September) might feature slow-cooked porchetta, with grilled octopus and swordfish carpaccio as a starter.
Area: Clifton
Website: thesquareclub.com
Price: ££
Reservations: Recommended
The Square Club can rightfully claim to have one of the best Sunday roasts in the city
Bank Tavern
No guide to Sunday roasts in Bristol can avoid this terrific little 19th-century pub in the old city. Why? Well, it’s claim to fame is that it gets booked up a year in advance for Sunday lunch (there are only seven tables) – bookings for the year open on January 1 at 10am and last time sold out in 13 minutes (there are three sittings). With the pitch-perfect roasts (maybe beef or slow-cooked porchetta) accompanied by imaginative starters and puddings, the Bank Tavern knows its stuff. If you can’t book a table, you can get a flavour of what all the fuss is about by having lunch there on another day (they don’t do food in the evenings) and trying the rolled pork belly (very similar to the Sunday equivalent).
Area: Old City
Website: banktavern.com
Price: £
Reservations: Essential
Back to index
Best for viewsGoram & Vincent
The best view in the city? Undoubtedly it is the one of Clifton Suspension Bridge from the light-filled restaurant at Avon Gorge by Hotel du Vin; the name comes from the legend of two local giants. Whatever time of day, Brunel’s marvel of engineering is a magnificent spectacle. As you’d expect from Hotel du Vin, the food is of a high standard – they have an asado coal-pit grill perfect for their range of steaks, but a good choice of British-themed dishes too, plus a prix fixe menu, daily specials and a Sunday roast. Want something less fancy? Then head to the hotel’s pub, the White Lion, which also boasts a view.
Area: Clifton
Website: hotelduvin.com
Price: ££
Reservations: Essential at weekends
Bambalan
Rise above the bustle of the city centre on the terrace at this lively diner/bar which specialises in a Mediterranean/Tex-Mex menu. Sit out under the vast pink awning and peruse the menu while sipping a mango margarita or a local North Street cider before tucking into a bowl of black bean chilli, chicken schnitzel or a selection of burgers and pizzas. They do a “bottomless brunch” on Saturdays and Sundays too; the Saturday session features a DJ with an Ibiza-themed playlist. Beacon Hall is right around the corner, so Bambalan is in the perfect spot for a pre- or post-gig drink.
Area: City centre
Website: bambalan.co.uk
Price: £
Reservations: Optional
City views, fusion food, bottomless brunches, live DJs – Bambalan has something for everyone
BOX-E
BOX-E is snuggly kitted out in the Cargo development of the city’s Wapping Wharf quarter with its ethically sound collection of shops and restaurants all housed in former shipping containers. The restaurant takes up two of them and in the simply decorated surroundings (glass and blonde plywood), chef Elliott Lidstone creates exceptional modern British cuisine. Space dictates everything here – all the ingredients are box fresh and the menu regularly changes – and with seating for just 14 and four people at the counter (for the kitchen table tasting menu, which must be requested in advance) you feel part of something intimate. If on the menu, the charred hispi cabbage with brown shrimp and lemon butter is ace. Grab a table outside and soak up the buzzy atmosphere of the wharf.
Area: Wapping Wharf
Website: boxebristol.com
Price: ££
Reservations: Essential
Back to index
How we choose
Every restaurant in this curated list has been tried and tested by our destination expert, who has visited to provide you with their insider perspective. We cover a range of budgets, from neighbourhood favourites to Michelin-starred restaurants – to best suit every type of traveller’s taste – and consider the food, service, best tables, atmosphere and price in our recommendations. We update this list regularly to keep up with the latest openings and provide up-to-date recommendations.
About our expertSimon Horsford
Simon is a regular visitor to Bristol, drawn by its maverick way of thinking, its enviable restaurant scene and range of attractions from museums and markets to, in particular, its music.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Dining and Cooking