Cribbs Causeway Restaurant Guide

This “very busy Italian neighbourhood bistro” in Westbury Park was set up by floorlayers Olly Gallery and Julian Faiello – and what a success their professional volte-face has proved, with a successive wave of talented local chefs passing through its doors over the past decade. The crowd-pleasing menu – spanning arancini, pasta dishes and sourdough pizzas – features some “very good” food which you can now enjoy on the heated, fairy-lit terrace: a Covid-era addition.

Set up in 2019 by Freddy Bird & wife Nessa (the latter in charge of FOH, and also the mastermind behind the restaurant’s crockery and ceramics), this Westbury Park icon continues to turn out “classic French bistro food with authentic Gallic ingredients” that “evokes happy memories” of dining across the Channel. Given Freddy’s starry TV stints alongside Roux Jr and co., and its own local reputation (it’s “hard to get a resa”), it did strike the odd cynic this year as “disappointing because of all the gushing praise” (not helped, by the fact it’s also “expensive”). Reports were, however, très bien in the main.

2022 Review: “Recently opened of all places in a retirement village” – a modern development of 64 apartments in Redland – “but open to the public”: this September 2020 newcomer is run by local caterers CleverChefs and occupies a light-filled space with open kitchen overlooking an arboretum garden. Open from breakfast and throughout the day, it wins strong early feedback for “assured cooking at reasonable prices”.

Clifton-ites and Bristolians have been flocking to Mitch Tonks’s smart seafood specialist (plus on-site fishmonger) for two decades — and no wonder since it “never disappoints”. Catch from Brixham and Cornwall (including the namesake crustacean) is cooked to fine effect over the Josper grill, and their “jazz nights (the last Sunday of every month) are a hit” as well.

“Incredible cooking” – “honestly some of the best anywhere my mind is blown every time I eat there” – is proclaimed by many fans (which, in her April 2025 review, included Sunday Times critic Charlotte Ivers) of this “stripped-back, busy dining room” from chef Jan Ostle and his wife Mary Wilson, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. The hyper-local menu showcases “loads of home-grown ingredients” from their own regeneratively farmed kitchen garden, and preparation is “imaginative and well thought out”. Ratings were dragged from 5/5 this year, by one or two diners nonplussed with what they saw as a heavy-handed approach to sustainable dining (“friendly service but disjointed by the obligatory extensive biography for each dish…”, “prioritisation of ethics over quality… terrible meal in parts, amazing in others… just tone down the creation of self-righteous plates and keep turning out the good ones!”).

2024 Review: “Standards remain consistently high” at this Redland boozer – “part of the Pony and Trap Group” and offering “a step above pub food” (though not straying from the classics and laying on proper Sunday roasts). Top Tip – “there are two rooms upstairs you can have for exclusive use of groups”.

2022 Review: A restaurant of two halves partly inspired by Kiwi chef Stephen Gilchrist's home country of New Zealand, and also featuring an adjoining Argentinian tapas bar with counter-style seating – both highly regarded for their unusual combinations and accent on foraging. Only the latter, Chandos Social @ Otira, was open as of October 2021 – and offering tapas menus to share per couple – so do check ahead before you visit.

2023 Review: Well known down Brizzle way, this small (16 seats) tapas haunt has an outsized reputation for its authentic approach. Our feedback is limited, but it’s a favourite for one or two of our reporters who award it very high marks. It’s part of a local group, and its siblings include Cargo Cantina and Gambas.

“It’s not a fish restaurant, but we had the best sole of the year there. Plus that crab... we don’t even like shellfish, normally, but mmmm that crab…” – this neighbourhood bar-restaurant on the corner of Stokes Croft and Montpelier is modest in size (33 covers, including 4 at the window bar), but “absolutely brilliant” for its local fan club – “amazingly friendly, and packed even at lunch”. The menu is short but changes regularly.

2023 Review: “Some of the most exciting food I have eaten in ages” has made this two-year-old Korean with a “short but tasty menu” a big hit in Bristol and beyond. Chef Duncan Roberts, who has worked for Joel Robuchon in Paris, and his wife Kyu Jeong Jeon moved to Stokes Croft from South Korea, and their fans include Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Top Tip – tongdak – whole chicken stuffed with sticky rice and grilled over charcoal.

This “fun and quirky” Stokes Croft three-year-old from the team behind Clifton’s Nutmeg – chef Saravanan Nambirajan and restaurateur Raja Munuswamy – specialises in the Tamil cooking of southern India and Sri Lanka ‘with a modern twist’, washed down by rum and arrack-based cocktails. Top Menu Tip – the signature ‘share and tear’ dosa made with 48-hour fermented rice.

“Unique” Clifton institution, where diners overlook swimmers in the restored 1850 pool below, while feasting on “consistently excellent dishes (often wood-fired), from a vibrant and frequently changing menu” – and the two activities can be combined in a ‘Swim and Eat’ package, with “great healthy options for those that want ’em” (there is also a spa and five newly opened bedrooms in a townhouse across the road). “This continues to be a favourite Bath/Bristol restaurant for a great meal almost 17 years after it opened – the atmosphere is quite literally exceptional”, while the Mediterranean-inspired food is “startlingly brilliant at these prices”. Top Menu Tip – “some fantastic inexpensive wines: try their Greek white!”.

“Attentive service and the opportunity for discussion with the chef/owner from seats at Kitchen bar” helps win early fans for this year-old venture from Duncan Robertson and his wife Kyu Jeong Jeon, which offers an “interesting” Korean menu inspired by Kyu’s upbringing there with a focus on BBQ and refermentation. Feedback is too limited as yet for a full rating, but in a December 2024 review, the FT’s Tim Hayward waxed lyrical (“spectacular… assertive… complex, sophisticated, rich”) including regarding the tofu – an ingredient he’s previously disliked – that here appeared with “subtle fungoid flavours. Creaminess. Like a custard made with only the white parts of mushrooms grown in Paris in catacombs on the bones of saints”.

“An excellent new opening in Bristol” – “there’s nothing else like this fantastic modern Chinese” in Montpelier, founded in 2024 by couple Sandy Or and Sacha Watts who met in Hong Kong in 2013 and began the project through supper clubs and pop-ups before converting an old fruit and veg shop. In July 2025, they started crowdfunding to bring to Bristol the first ‘siu mei’ oven outside of London (allows chefs to hang whole cuts of meat – typically pork, duck or goose – vertically inside the chamber where they are basted in their own fat and roasted over hardwood charcoal).

2024 Review: This Clifton late-2022 newcomer serves brunch all day and Asian dishes in the evenings. No feedback as yet, but if Bristol Live are to be believed it’s a promising new option on this well-known restaurant strip that’s something of a “hotspot” at weekends.

“Excellent bread and dangerously tasty cakes” draw a steady crowd to this independent café supplied by its own bakery – “they have some tables where you can’t use a laptop, so there’s always somewhere to sit” and “the world is a better place for having proper local bread”. Top Tip – “the apricot and pistachio cake is ridiculously good”.