Pasta Ripiena, Bristol: ‘hilariously messy and brilliantly done’ – restaurant review

You’ll eat in fancier restaurants, but few will serve such taut and silkily delicious pasta

Pasta Ripiena, 33 St Stephen’s Street, Bristol BS1 1JX (0117 329 3131) Starters £6-£7.50. Mains £14-£17. Desserts £5.50-£6. Lunch, three courses £17. Wines from £19

Recently, a chef got in touch with an invitation to review his restaurant. As a come-on, he sent me a photograph of one of his dishes. Boy, was it a looker: emerald green leaves of what appeared to be wild garlic were draped languorously across quenelles of an equally verdant pea purée. There was the promise of fresh morels and dribbles of a glossy jus, placed Jackson Pollock-style in exactly the right places, all of it spiralling towards the middle of the plate. There, the eye was drawn to two meaty cylinders, either beef fillet or venison, seared outside, the deep red of the eruption from a punctured jugular at their eye. You could have put it in a frame and flogged it at Sotheby’s.