Bulrush, Bristol: ‘It’s the kind of thing I’d happily eat by the fistful’ – restaurant review

Eating this is like waking from a dream of taste and texture: sweet, salty, sour; suave, crystalline, crisp. Blissful

Everyone has their own idea of what constitutes the perfect restaurant, from giant, over-designed warehouses pulsing with clubby soundtracks and a menu of Asian fusion to, well, Maccy Ds. As ever, each to their own. The places that most appeal to me tend to be of a type: independently owned, not too much money spent on trend-bothering design. Perhaps there’s a chef-owner in the kitchen with partner out front, a team that concentrates on making you, the customer, happy. The kitchen’s not afraid to take risks, while being right up for baking bread and curing charcuterie. They don’t create dishes designed to be Instagrammed and then forgotten in favour of the hottest, newest thing.

Where do I find restaurants that fit this dream brief most often? Bristol. Why that is, I’m not sure, but it has probably got a lot to do with an established and thriving restaurant scene, proximity to a wealth of excellent produce, and being a cosmopolitan and beautiful city close enough to London to skim off ambitious chefs unable to afford anything in the increasingly rapacious and impossible capital.

Related: The Hotel Portmeirion: ‘It’s the living definition of trying too hard’ – restaurant review | Marina o’Loughlin