As a matter of survival, Bristol restaurateurs had to come up with all sorts of ingenious ideas during the pandemic. Many went down the delivery or takeaway route, others concentrated on cooking kits so customers could replicate their favourite dishes at home.
Alison Brown decided to do something quite different at her long-established Clifton Village restaurant Fishers. She took a few tables out of the ground-floor dining room and replaced them with a huge fresh fish counter.
She even cut a hole in the front wall so she could sell seafood to the locals as well as takeaway fish and chips. The restaurant may have been forced to close for a while due to restrictions but at least the village gained a fishmongers and additional chippy.
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Alison has kept the fish counter since reopening the restaurant post-lockdown and the wet fish and shellfish retail side of Fishers has become an important new side of the business. She also added outdoor tables in the street for warmer days so it’s very much business as usual at this popular neighbourhood seafood restaurant.
I’ve been eating at Fishers pretty much since it first opened 21 years ago. Along with Spiny Lobster on Whiteladies Road and Gambas in Wapping Wharf, it remains one of the city’s go-to restaurants when it comes to the freshest fish dishes.
The look of the place hasn’t really changed that much over the years. It still has white paper tablecloths over nautical blue and white striped ones, and there are still old ship lanterns and porthole windows.
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It still looks a restaurant that has lost its bearings. Rather than in landlocked Princess Victoria Street, it should really be perched on the quayside of a quaint Cornish harbour.
The menu definitely reads like one you’d salivate over in Salcombe or St Ives. There are Cornish king scallops with red pepper sauce vierge and samphire; Cornish crab and sweetcorn fritters with sweet chilli sauce and pan-fried fillets of Dover sole with lemon butter sauce and roast new potatoes.
If you want to go traditional, try the battered cod and chips with tartare sauce and mushy peas (good value at £13.50). If you really want to push the boat out at this temple of all things seafood, go for the hot shellfish platter for two (£46) - a teetering pile of of steamed mussels, Cornish king scallops and roast tiger prawns in garlic and herb butter.
If memory serves, they may have once offered a token steak for meat eaters and possibly a vegetarian option. However, on the evening I visited, the menu was 100% fruits of the sea.
I kicked off with half a kilo of steamed River Teign mussels (£7.95). The mountain of plump, juicy mussels had been steamed in a light and fragrant white wine, garlic and cream sauce that was soon mopped up with a generous supply of good quality sourdough bread.
It was followed by roast monkfish tail wrapped in Serrano ham - at £22.95, the most expensive dish on the menu apart from the platter. The firm, meaty monkfish was fantastically fresh and carefully cooked, its salty ham overcoat crisp and generous.
The fish was teamed with a robust and assertive romesco sauce and crisp-edged roast potatoes. A tangle of soft, buttery leeks and springy tufts of kale completed a well handled dish that let the beautiful piece of monkfish shine.
Desserts can often be an afterthought in seafood restaurants but not here. Much as my brilliant waitress urged me to try the banana fritters dusted with cinnamon sugar and served with vanilla ice cream, I had an even better idea.
From past experience, the rhubarb crème brulée (£6.50) at Fishers has always been a winning dessert so I was keen to see if standards had slipped at all since my last visit. Not in the slightest - the caramelised sugar top was as crunchy as glass and the thick set custard beneath was creamy, outrageously rich, but tempered by the sharpness of the rhubarb.
It was a fine finale for a highly enjoyable return visit to this long-running Clifton venue. More than two decades since it opened, this is one restaurant so consistent that it certainly doesn’t need to fish for compliments.
Fishers, 35 Princess Victoria Street, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 4BX. Tel: 0117 9747044.
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