Currently celebrating its 20th anniversary, The Clifton Sausage has seen plenty of Bristol restaurants come and go over the years. But then this much loved Clifton favourite has stuck to the same winning formula of serving classic British dishes and it has been repaid with customer loyalty.
Once the head chef, Simon Quarrie has been involved for 18 years but he eventually bought the business with his wife, Joy, in 2014. He’s not the longest-serving member of staff, though - bar manager Bob Cagney has been working at The Clifton Sausage for 19 years, an impressive innings in the transient world of hospitality.
As somebody who first ate in the restaurant the week it opened in 2002, I’m proud to say I pre-date any member of staff and the current owner, too. During those two decades, I have visited the restaurant several times and despite the occasional blip, the quality of the food and service has remained consistently high throughout - over 20 years, that’s no mean feat.
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Returning last week after a lengthy absence, it was pretty much business as usual at The Clifton Sausage. We hadn’t booked and had to virtually beg for the only available table tucked in a dark corner close to the kitchen. After so many challenging months due to the pandemic, it was great to see the restaurant packed and busy.
Owner Simon was hosting a wine tasting and dinner in the front bar and a table of 15 had just arrived close to us - the place was buzzing. Not much has changed inside the restaurant, which has retained a country gastropub feel with cow paintings on the rough stone walls, Farrow and Ball paintwork and chunky farmhouse tables and chairs.
On the wall next to our table, there was an old butcher’s guide poster depicting different cuts of beef - just in case diners need to swot up on the difference between clod, thin flank, chuck ribs and the mouse-round (it’s a mouse-shaped muscle used in stir-fries apparently). Although sausages have always been the focus since day one, the menu is much broader than that.
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*There’s a daily fish special from Cornwall, Wiltshire rib-eye steaks and free-range chicken burgers. I started with a steaming mountain of Cornish mussels (£9). Plump and seriously fresh, the mussels had been steamed in Iford cider which added a sweet note to the herby sauce.
There are eight different sausages on offer, all priced at £12.50 and served with mash or champ and onion gravy. For vegetarians, there’s a Glamorgan sausage (leek, Caerphilly and Cheddar) and vegans can order the sweet potato, chilli and ginger version. I went for The Clifton - the restaurant’s signature sausage made with pork, cider and wholegrain mustard. Generosity has always been a factor of The Clifton Sausage’s success and this was not a main course for dieters.
A mound of creamy, spring onion-flecked mash was encircled by a moat of the darkest, richest, varnish-like onion gravy. Perched on top, three juicy, plump sausages with the correct coarse texture and spicy mustard seed pop.
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If you are going to run a sausage restaurant in Clifton called The Clifton Sausage, you’d better live up to the name. These were prize porkers and it was a benchmark bangers and mash.
Not somebody afraid of a culinary challenge, I loosened my belt and ordered sticky toffee pudding (£6.50) to finish. Dark, springy and smothered with a sweet and sticky butterscotch sauce and scoop of good quality vanilla ice cream, it wasn’t the lightest option after an indulgent main but was worth every artery-hardening moment.
Anyway, The Clifton Sausage has never been about abstinence or calorie counting. It’s all about serving generous portions of hearty British classics. After two decades, this longstanding Bristol restaurant continues to do precisely what it set out to do.
Here’s to the next 20 years.
The Clifton Sausage, 7 Portland Street, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 4JA. Tel: 0117 9731192.
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