Bristol has scored five mentions in a list celebrating the top 100 local restaurants in the country. The Good Food Guide has been curating a list of the best local restaurants and handing out awards for 13 years to celebrate the places that are the beating heart of communities around Britain.
This year, the guide received more than 37,000 nominations from diners advocating their beloved local haunts and has turned out to be the strongest field of contenders they've ever seen. National and regional winners were also awarded, with Wild Artichokes in Kingsbridge, Devon taking the regional prize for the south west and Tallow in Southborough, Kent, winning the top national prize.
In the extended list, five Bristol restaurants were named in the top 100 best local venues in the country. The Good Food Guide has maintained that the very best restaurants "offer creative, memorable dishes based on high-quality seasonal (and preferably local) produce – in other words, no pretensions or gimmicks".
Read more: Bristol brewery granted licence for new bar in historic Stokes Croft building
"After six weeks of nominations and many more weeks of inspecting and deliberating, we’re delighted to share The Good Food Guide’s 100 Best Local Restaurants of 2023," it said. The five restaurants from Bristol in the top 100 are:
Caper + Cure, Stokes Croft
The Old Chemist, 108a Stokes Croft, Bristol, BS1 3RU
This small Stokes Crift venue offers chic dining with a kitchen that creates adventurous dishes with meat, fish and veggie options - which BristolLive awarded four stars in 2019. It also has a create selection of cocktails and wines
Bank, Brislington
107 Wells Rd, Totterdown, Bristol BS4 2BS
Bank is known for gathering the best seasonal ingredients to create a regularly changing menu of sharing plates and cocktails. A recent review of Bank's new fire-cooked menu praised the kitchen's ingenious flavour profiles and excellent desserts.
Little Hollows Pasta, Redland
26 Chandos Road, Redland, Bristol, BS6 6PF
Before its first brick-and-mortar restaurant, Little Hollows Pasta was selling its handmade pasta at markets in Bristol and the Cotswolds, as well as delivering pasta boxes to people’s homes. Soon after it opened in 2021, our reviewer described it as a "perfect" bowl of homemade pasta, earning four stars.
littlefrench, Westbury Park
2 North View, Westbury Park, Bristol, BS6 7QB
This five-star reviewed French restaurant has been open since 2019 in Westbury Park and was hailed as one of the most exciting new openings of that year. "Robust, full-flavoured Gallic cooking at prices kind enough to encourage locals to revisit often," it said.
Sonny Stores, Southville
47 Raleigh Road, Southville, Bristol, BS3 1QS
Earning another five stars from BristolLive is Sonny Stores, another tiny neighbourhood restaurant run by husband-and-wife owners Pegs Quinn and Mary Glynn. It has a regularly rotating black board of specials with an Italian influence, including pasta, pizettes and delicious desserts.
You can see the full national list rundown on The Good Food Guide website.
