Driving down Whiteladies Road in Bristol you cannot fail to notice the trendy chapel conversion that is home to one of the area’s newest restaurants.
The city’s River Cottage Canteen is another link in the growing empire of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – promoter of local and organic food.
And the food we found at the Bristol canteen reflected these values.
On the menu you will find the likes of Brixham crab, Dorset Black Cow vodka, Orchard Pig cider from Somerset, Bristol Beer Factory Beers, Butcombe brews, local coffee from Extract Coffee Roasters and Miles and Pukka tea plus many other South West supplies.
St John’s Court Hall, the Grade II listed 19th Century church building on Whiteladies Road, is home to the River Cottage Canteen.
Building on the success of Axminster and its award-winning successor in Plymouth, River Cottage re-creates its unique food offering in this wonderfully-restored church hall in the Clifton area of Bristol.
The canteen offers freshly-prepared seasonal, local, organic and wild food, on a daily changing menu, served in the relaxed ambience of the restaurant.
If I was to make one suggestion with the food – just a litte more choice on the mains. I found six choices of main course quite limiting when it only included two meat options (one a salad).
I opted for the potted crab to start and I would highly recommend this flavoursome dish with great citrus flavours.
My dining companion and I both opted for the pork for main – not normally my first port of call for meat, but it was good.
I was in need of something to warm me up on a cool autumn evening.
This did the job.
The pork was very good, very tender and the horseradish mash was a definite highlight – all washed down with a rather good French Grenache Merlot.
Presentation was superb here – the food is really ‘good looking’ and the surroundings are trendy and really on point when it comes to moving restaurants with the times.
This was again reflected in my partner’s pudding – described by him as ‘really good’ and although I’m not normally a fan of panacotta it looked so appealing I nearly dived in too.
Other words to describe it were ‘smooth’, ‘tasty’ and ‘lovely’ – layman’s terms for ‘top marks’ I feel.
In all, River Cottage Canteen is definitely worth a try – as long as nobody in your dining party is a particularly fussy eater and doesn’t need endless choices.
It has a great, contemporary atmosphere but might be somewhere you’d bring your parents or in-laws rather than a group of friends on a night out.
rivercottage.net/canteens/bristol/ n
