promise technology: Best new Bristol food and drink 2012 ? Bristol Culture

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Best new Bristol food and drink 2012 ? Bristol Culture

2012 has been a bumper year for food and drink in Bristol. Despite the difficult conditions which have unfortunately seen the demise of several businesses, many more have opened their doors for the first time. This list picks the best from the new restaurants, cafes, bars and more that have opened this year:

Best new restaurant: Bravas (below)
At the supper club that became a restaurant, the patatas bravas and the rest of the Spanish style cuisine is a delight, and they have some beer and wine that is rare to find this side of Andalucia. Continuing the foodiefication of Cotham Hill.
www.bravas.co.uk

Bravas

Best new cafe: Small Street Espresso
A long-awaited cafe in Bristol that treats coffee-making as an artform. Small Street Espresso makes superb coffee, and that?s about it. But what more could you need?
www.facebook.com/smallstespresso

Best new bar: Manna
From the same team as Prego over the road, this is a bar which has already established itself as a firm favourite, with visitors coming from far beyond its Westbury Park home.
www.mannabar.co.uk

Best new pub: The Hare
The Southville end of North Street is already abuzz with bars and restaurants, and with The Hare opening, that buzz extends a bit further east.
www.theharepub.co.uk

Best new street food: Meat & Bread?(below)
The queue that always forms on College Green before Ben Warran and his cart even arrive show just how popular his?humongous?rolls packed with meat have become.
www.meatandbread.co.uk

Meat & Bread

Best new design: Spicer+Cole
Occupying a spacious corner site flooded with natural light;?a sanded wooden floor contrasts with exposed metal light fittings and a stone bar surface.
www.spicerandcole.co.uk

Best new Sunday lunch: St Werburgh?s Sunday Roast Club
My best find of the year; and finding it at the end of Boiling Wells Lane is half the fun. This is Sunday lunch done very well indeed in the most esoteric of surroundings.
www.facebook.com/St-Werburghs-Sunday-Roast-Club/

Best new deli: Mud Dock Deli
Not quite just a deli, but I wanted to include this new business somewhere on the list and it is a winning combination of deli, cafe and restaurant in an unusual location.
www.mud-dock.co.uk/deli/

Best new pop-up: The Basement at the Runcible Spoon
The Basement supper club took over the Runcible Spoon for four days only, and it was a triumph. Dan?s Momofuku?volcano was one of my most memorable dishes of the year.
www.twitter.com/MontpelierBsmt

Best new beer bar: BrewDog
Alongside their own beers, also keen advocates of local breweries such as the Wild Beer Co. They have also linked up with Grillstock, with more collaborations promised.
www.brewdog.com/bars/bristol

Best new cafe-bar: The Birdcage (below)
A cafe during the day and a bar at night, where there is live music that includes the novel concept in Bristol of indoor busking. Also contains a vintage clothes shop.
www.birdcagebristol.com

The Birdcage

Best new bakery: East Bristol Bakery
A great new addition to St Mark?s Road, becoming that most rare of modern-day businesses: a community bakery. A second place to Hart?s Bakery in its new home.
www.eastbrisbakery.tumblr.com

Best new baby-friendly: Bubba Hub
As the father of a toddler, I have spent much of 2012 getting to know the best baby-friendly business. BubbaHub is the pick of the new baby-friendly cafes.
www.thebubbahub.co.uk

Best new frozen yoghurt emporium: Angel Berry
Not much competition for this award, but Angel Berry has been a revelation, with regular new flavour of frozen?yoghurt?and of course those delicious pobbles.
www.angelberry.me

Best new cafe in a launderette: At The Well (below)
At The Well could be a very good tea rooms-style cafe by itself, with vintage crockery. It?s a bonus that it?s also a launderette, in this gloriously quirky new offering.
www.at-the-well.co.uk

At The Well