The Good Food Guide was founded by Raymond Postgate in 1951 and today it remains the longest-standing and best-selling guide to dining out in the UK.
Inspections are conducted on an ongoing basis and anonymously with impartial recommendations then offered. Members of The Good Food Guide Club can access hundreds of reviews and pictures via their app.
Here are the 19 Bristol restaurants that are currently recommended by The Good Food Guide, with ratings ranging from Local Gems to Very Good.
13. Harts Bakery, Lower Approach Road - Rating: Good
“Despite being perfectly located for travellers looking for a classy train snack to go, plenty of people view this excellent bakery right next to Bristol Temple Meads station as a destination in itself. Located in a Victorian railway arch on the station approach, it is simply decorated with moveable counters on castors and a gleaming coffee machine in front of the large open-plan workspace. A few bare wood tables inside and a couple of outdoor benches are there for those who want to linger over their cheese, leek and mustard doorstop sourdough toasties or cinnamon buns and flat whites. Open from early doors till 3pm, a daily changing menu of pasties, pies, sausage rolls, filled croissants, toasties and cakes are complemented by lunch specials such as chicken and tomato broth with asparagus and peas, plus sourdough on the side” | Courtesy of Harts Bakery
14. BOX-E, Wapping Wharf - Rating: Good
“We have got a heated canvas stretch tent for our terrace,’ say the Lidstones, in the kind of boast designed to induce neighbour envy, but which comes as a welcome resort on the windswept Bristol wharf. Shipping containers became the new Georgian country manor some time in the 2010s, and this renovated pair are to be found at the bottom of Gaol Ferry Steps in Cargo 1, or reached via the lift at the Pigsty end. Don’t make that face: this is modern dining west country style, from the homemade bread and whipped butter to the Pennard Vale cheese with celery salt crackers and apple chutney. In between those, there may be a velvet-smooth, truffled-up soup of cauliflower and chestnuts, or smoked trout with charred hispi, to prime the palate. A spring visit produced ‘wonderfully composed’ main dishes of duck breast with Puy lentils and roasted hake with chard and little explosions of preserved lemon, but vegetarian dishes can be just as inspired: roast yellow courgette with chickpeas, radicchio and sumac.” | Parkdean Resorts
15. Tare, Wapping Wharf - Rating: Good
“Naming a restaurant after the ‘tare’ (or unladen weight) of a shipping container might seem bizarre, until you realise that this eatery actually resides within two of those industrial-sized metal boxes on Bristol’s Wapping Wharf Cargo development. It’s a tight and tidy spot seating just 20, with more space outside on the terrace (weather permitting). Matt Hampshire learned his craft with Michael Caines and made a name for himself at the nearby Riverstation restaurant, before striking out on his own with this solo venture. “ | Bristol World
16. Pasta Ripiena, St Stephen’s Street - Rating: Good
“Intimate and informal, with small, closely packed, square wooden tables ranged along either side of the dining room, this cool, modern Italian offers a short, daily changing menu of fresh stuffed pasta dressed in moreish sauces. The chefs in the open kitchen conjure magic from simple ingredients, say the ox cheek ragù that’s used to fill casoncelli parcels (served on a bed of celeriac purée, garnished with bresaola and Parmesan). Antipasti includes fantastic sourdough focaccia and a salad of Italian tomatoes, ricotta, balsamic vinegar and deeply flavoured grass-green virgin olive oil. Dessert might be a perfectly wobbly panna cotta of pistachio and more of that wonderful olive oil; otherwise, opt for a generous slab of Italian cheese with homemade flatbread and mustard fruits. “ | Pasta Ripiena