I often lament, mostly silently but sometimes loudly, the dearth of fresh, hot, homemade, walkable, street snacks in our country. And, allegations of mass data gathering under the guise of health technology aside, I think the ZOE lot make good points about eating well — keep it fresh, whole, and high quality. Therefore, an Italian slash mediterranean bistro café in Bedminster selling homemade arancini the weight of a small shotput for a reasonable price (£7) — and much more — is my dream come true.

Zena’s (long ‘e’, as in pizza) sits amongst the massage parlours and bed shops of West Street and, drenched in a technicolour avocado-and-grocery-mural, is a corner of equatorial sunshine on overcast pebbledash terraces. Owner Mehdi named the restaurant after his mum. It means beautiful in Arabic.

Cannoli is imported to Zena’s from Sicily and the rest of the food is made from scratch onsite, which would be impressive for a small team running this petite joint six days a week, but the team is wholly, solely, Mehdi. There were employees once but for the last two years it has just been him cooking the food, baking the bread, making the coffee and serving his locals he knows by name. “Sometimes it’s a lot”, he says, with a grin.

Mehdi makes his arancini in the east Sicily style, shaping them into massive teardrops, or mini mountains; they are thought to be inspired by the outline of Mount Etna. A thick outside crumb crust holds a gooey rice filling that nestles ragu, truffle, salami, or quattro formaggi.

Fun language fact: east and west Sicilians are deep into a centuries-long feud about the linguistic gender of these delectable deep-fried rice balls. In the west, they are spherical and feminine — arancine — while in the east they are conical and masculine — arancini. People feel extremely strongly about it, thanks to a combination of colonial history and past invasions intertwined with local dialect and identity. Many a travel blog tella the dangers of using the wrong gender on either side of the island to order the iconic Sicilian snack. Such passionate cultural argument reminds me of the time I brought a look of pure WTF upon my Italian friends’ faces when I ate a mozzarella ball at dinner concurrently with salad leaves, on the same plate, rather than one after the other. I never truly got to the bottom of why this was such a heinous crime, so if any Italians can enlighten me, I would welcome it.

Zena’s pizzas are Neapolitan-thin with a soft base broken up by big bursted yeast bubbles and laden with whatever topping you fancy. Gluten free is also an option — just ring ahead to give Mehdi enough time to prepare the dough. Having not rung ahead for my gluten free friend, I waited in a mild panic as Mehdi checked his stocks, but all was well, and my gluten free friendship survived to live another day. I, and she, are delighted to share that the gluten free pizza at Zena’s is actually good, which as most know is a rare miracle. Neither shattering in structure nor cardboard-y in flavour, the dough is supple and tasty enough to perhaps not even give the free-from game away.

I highly recommend rounding off dinner with a chunky, cigar-thick cannoli stuffed with creamy ricotta — also gluten free and available in a rainbow of flavours — and a bitter espresso to cut through the sweet.

The closest you can get to a glass of catarratto here is a strawberry energy smoothie, but no matter — feel free to grab a beer from Christmas Tesco opposite (you know, the one with fairy lights strung up year-round) to enjoy with your spaghetti al ragu, beetroot gnocchi, burger and fries, or avocado toast. While he serves up a good slice of Sicilian authenticity, Mehdi’s menu is truly wide-ranging. Top-to-toe Sicilian it is not, but, to be fair, no one said it should be. It is exactly what it wants to be, and for that, we love it.

All words and photos by Caitlin Johnson Bowring

The Bristol Sauce is an AI free publication — all our work is written and edited by humans.

The news

Bristol brewery Wiper and True have taken over the Arnolfini’s cafe and bar. Posting on Instagram, the brewery announced on 14 May that they have taken over the space and will be partnering with FED to serve food and drinks throughout the day. The inside is currently being refurbished, but the outside is open for business for anyone who wishes to enjoy a sunny harbourside pint while the weather is nice!

The Gallimaufry are opening an events space above the pub which will host workshops, parties, football screenings (just in time for the World Cup) and supper clubs. The renovations are currently ongoing but it sounds like they hope to be opening the space soon.

The team behind Greytone Coffee in St Paul’s have opened a roastery which is now supplying their cafe. The roastery is based in Montpelier, less than half a mile away from Greytone, and the beans roasted there are available for purchase in the cafe.

The couple behind Tapps on Whiteladies Road and The Shakespeare in Redland have started growing their own produce to supply the wine bar and pub. Greenwoods Garden is in Cardiff and will feature polytunnels, fruit trees, salad beds and herbs.

Chandos Road wine bar Barroux has opened its courtyard garden just in time for the warm weather. It can seat 18 people and gets the sun until 6.30pm — perfect for early evening drinking. Read The Bristol Sauce review of Barroux.

Restaurateur Dan O’Regan teased on his Instagram a few days ago that BANK in Totterdown will be bringing back breakfast on Saturdays. The venue originally opened as an all-day venue, but stopped doing breakfast after a few months. Now they’re bringing breakfast back as part of a wider refurb later this summer.

After spotting a sign for Thikanaa on Bedminster Parade last week I got all excited that the Southmead-based Indian restaurant might be opening a second site, but no. They’ve apparently been in temporary residence in Ganesha while some problems with the Southmead site were resolved, but they are returning to the original site imminently. Read The Bristol Sauce review of Thikanaa.

Sam’s Master Grill has moved a few doors down from its original site and had a serious facelift. The new spot is just before the arches and the decor is (sadly) a world away from the kitsch waterfalls and plastic plant garlands of the old site, but the staff are still wearing the signature Britney mics so all is not lost.

Closures

It seems Bedminster’s Knife and Fork Cafe is no more. The Sri Lankan spot on Bedminster Road is reported as temporarily closed on Google Maps and the staff posted on Facebook in February saying they were temporarily closing due to maintenance issues. A sign in the window shows that the site is available to let suggesting the closure is permanent. Read The Bristol Sauce review of Knife and Fork Cafe.

New openings

Aktar Islam’s Kush in Clifton Village is now taking bookings! The restaurant is still in its soft launch phase but the menu reads very well: bone marrow with paratha, Goan pork xacuti, chicken liver fry and corn ribs stand out among many superb sounding dishes.

Bath butchers/sandwich shop Green Street could soon be opening a second site in Bristol. The Walcot Group run Green Street as well as other South West favourites such as Solina, Walcot House and Little Walcot in Frome. The list of venues on their website now includes Green Street Bristol ‘coming soon’. We suspect this will not be the Walcot Group’s only venture into Bristol in the coming months…

There’s a new tapas bar on the brink of opening in

Upgrade your subscription to read about where the new tapas bar is, plus seven more openings.

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Thanks to the following people who answered my questions for this article:

Dan O’Regan (Dan) — Co-owner of BANK and Lapin, and author of Notes on a Napkin

Verity Foss (Verity) — Co-owner of Oowee

A marketing manager (MM) of four independent restaurants in Bristol, who wished to remain anonymous

A content creator (CC) with ~10,000 followers on Instagram, who wished to remain anonymous

Have you worked with content creators? If so, how have you found the experience and was it beneficial for your business?

Dan: “We’ve worked with content creators at both BANK and Lapin, although we’ve never paid anyone to come and eat with us. Lots of influencers have booked tables of their own accord, paid in full, and posted about it. A handful have come in as our guests after we’ve reached out to them.

“What I get a lot of, and I mean a lot, are cold DMs asking for a free meal in exchange for a post. Small creators with no prior relationship to either restaurant, often with significantly smaller followings than our own restaurant accounts. There are also visitors to Bristol sending blanket emails to anywhere with a kitchen. I know they’re blanket because the same pitch often lands in my personal Instagram inbox as well as the restaurant pages. The bloody cheek of it. I’ll never work with anyone who pitches like that.

“When I do send an invite, it’s because I think it’ll genuinely move the needle for us, and I do it on a pretty limited basis. The results can be tough to gauge, to be honest, so I tend to be cautious. I also tend to only invite people I know to be decent. An inconsiderate table can have a real impact on the other guests in the room and on the service as a whole, and a smooth shift will never play second fiddle to a creator’s visit. The people I’ve dealt with have almost always been pleasant, polite, and happy to let service unfold around them.

“Some visits have produced a noticeable uptick in bookings. Others haven’t. I’m wary of anyone who claims to guarantee grandiose results.”

thomfoodery’s comment from Instagram: “In the 10 years I spent as a food blogger (I started writing before Instagram existed) I charged one restaurant (£650. Not an independent) for a video. One. But I spent THOUSANDS. The majority of food content creators see it as a hobby and passion project. Growing their following and getting some local recognition/fame is the appeal — not money. There is no money in doing restaurant reviews 😂 Only a handful will get big enough to end up making more than they spend, and those are the ones who went full time after years of providing value to independent restaurants with their own money. If a restaurant contacts a creator, of course the meal should be covered. If they offer a small fee on top, that money will generally go straight back into hospitality.

“I’d put good odds that most Bristol food influencers put WAY more money into the independent food scene than the author of this piece (Meg) does. And yes, there are some rotten eggs. I have managed Instagram accounts for local restaurants for years and I see them in the inboxes like vultures, asking for “collabs” with nothing to back it up. It’s frustrating, and I get why restaurants feel frustrated and burned by it. Don’t even get me started on engagement pods. But that’s it, a few bad eggs. Same as any industry. Probably not as many in journalism.

“Done right, working with the right creators can transform a business overnight. The spike in footfall from a viral video might only last weeks or months, but the long-term impact can be significant. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve done it myself. I have the messages from grateful restaurant owners to prove it. This piece raises some valid points, but it also reeks of a food journalist with a degree who’s bitter that someone with a few thousand followers, pizza hanging out of their mouth and a LED light in their hand, has more reach and influence than they do… and probably ever will!”

Verity: “I think the main creator we’ve consistently worked with is Bos Finesse, and honestly I’ve always been really happy with the content produced. The work we’ve done together has mainly been paid campaign content around launches or specific products, where he creates videos focused on the campaign itself rather than a “review” as such. You really do get your money’s worth in terms of the quality of the video and the amount of time and effort him and his team put into the content. He also regularly posts about us off his own back when he wants content for his page, and that’s never been in exchange for anything.

“What I personally think he does well is balancing paid campaign work with authenticity. He’ll still go out and review places independently and often buys the food himself. I think that balance is important and, honestly, I don’t think you can really fault his ethics or authenticity as an influencer.”

MM: “We’ve invited them in for everything from launch parties to helping promote happy hours. We’ve seen varying levels of success, though overall I’d say it’s impossible to attribute any uptake in business to a content creator, and any claiming to be responsible for this are being irresponsible and undermining the hard work of the restaurants themselves. I’ve seen our restaurants suddenly be ‘put on the map’, so to speak - higher search volume in the locality, more direct messages on social media, an uptake in followers.

“This is great for engagement, though rarely translates to real footfall. We take our influencer campaigns with a pinch (or handful) of salt, and are aware that they can help raise awareness amongst a local audience but cannot directly affect the business measurably. I’d say our most successful ones have been unpaid campaigns using micro influencers, outside of the clique of Bristol food influencers we all know."

“We’ve also experienced a strange phenomenon when inviting creators in on a free-meal basis with no fee. Minutes after sending off carefully written invites to a select few handpicked creators, we received an influx of messages from across the city asking to be invited in. It seems that they must have had a group chat and tossed in ‘this restaurant is giving away freebies, dm them’. I get that work has to be found and it’s great they have such a supportive network, but to a smallish restaurant it can feel like the vultures descending and taking advantage.”

Prior to this article, did you know that restaurants are equally culpable for failing to declare ads under the DMCC Act’s guidance?

Verity: “If I’m honest, I didn’t actually know this until reading the article. I always assumed the responsibility sat mainly with the influencer rather than the restaurant itself, so it was definitely eye-opening.”

Dan: “Honestly, no. I had no idea, so I've learnt something already from the piece.”

Do you trust the engagement you see on influencers' posts?

Verity: “I’ve always known to pay more attention to views than likes or comments, but I genuinely had no idea about engagement pools and some of the practices mentioned in the article. It would definitely frustrate me if I paid for influencer marketing and later found out the engagement wasn’t authentic.”

Dan: “I’m a restaurant-goer as well as a restaurateur, and I’m always looking for reputable sources to add places to my list. That includes influencers. Some I trust, some I don’t.

“I’m pretty au fait with the local accounts, and I see the same names cropping up commenting on each other’s posts. Obviously that does something for the algorithm, but it doesn’t tell me much else.

“When I’m looking at an opportunity, I’ll ask for a breakdown of the following by location, then look at the engagement and views with that in mind. At the end of the day, fifty million views don’t matter if they come from the other side of the world. I need views that are likely to convert to reservations. What we’re interested in is a smaller, focussed local account with a following that actually shows up. Basically, not all engagement is the same, and working out which is which is part of my job.”

MM: “This is a tricky question. I trust the numbers to an extent but don’t use them to measure an influencer’s success. Scrolling through Bristol’s food creator profiles in turn uncovers the cronyism of it all — the same 5-10 creators commenting on each other’s posts, sharing and supporting one another. Don’t get me wrong, this is great for them! However, it undermines the authenticity of these promotions to me. There’s only so many times I can see the same creators drooling over their pal’s post and saying they literally cannot wait to go. Will they actually book in without an invite? Speaking from experience, I highly fucking doubt it.”

CC: “I've not seen or been invited to an engagement pod since before lockdown. I don't think they're an issue, even if there was, it’s more to curb Instagram’s continued attack on engagement. Most of the food creator community have become very good friends through their love of food and naturally will message and like each other’s posts because friends pop up on your feed more often, there's absolutely no conspiracy. The issue years and years ago was buying followers which I feel was a much bigger issue for venues.”

Say a restaurant owner reading this is trying to decide whether to spend £500 on a creator versus £500 on a Meta ad. What's your honest case for why they should choose you?

CC: “Meta ads and creator content have a completely different impact.
If a restaurant was to use a Meta ads, what content would they be using? More than likely content already created by a content creator or freelance food photographer, a lot of restaurants don’t have time for creating content. I always personally add their content to a Google drive for them to access as it’s as much their content as is it mine. Meta ads are personally annoying and are often scrolled past by viewers. People have been following certain creators for a long time and will hopefully engage more.”

Do you think there are problems within the influencer industry and if so, what are they? Have you ever witnessed them firsthand?

CC: “I feel there are problems in any industry and understanding the industry, but mainly transparency. Firstly most influencers do it for free food. Unless they're full time and rightly so charge for their content like any other freelancer in any chosen industry.

“The onus is on everyone in the industry, creator, venue and viewer. A creator should declare ads, a venue should request and check it's been declared and viewers should question whether is an ad, if they feel it could be.

“I've always been aware of ASA and CMA guidelines, always have ad in bold and declare ads. I feel it's a good thing for more powers for it to be enforced.”

What are the positive and negative effects of influencers promoting restaurants, do you think?

Verity: “I think one of the negatives is that it can become difficult to know what’s genuinely great when everything online is being presented as amazing. It can also mean restaurants with bigger marketing budgets outshine smaller independent places that may actually serve better food, simply because they can’t afford influencer marketing.

”I also think there can sometimes be a snowball effect where everyone suddenly jumps on one restaurant or brand, while other genuinely good restaurants get overlooked. Occasionally the hype can become bigger than the actual experience itself.

”That said, I’ve also seen some genuinely brilliant restaurants and hardworking owners completely transform their businesses through influencer marketing. Some places really do blow up overnight from one video, and that’s the positive side of it — seeing good people and good brands finally get their break.”

Dan: “‘Influencer’ is an interesting term, and we all kind of know what it means, but in practice it’s anyone with influence. A journalist, a celebrity, a respected chef: they all fall into a similar bucket when we’re talking about who can shape what people think of a restaurant.

“For me, it comes down to authenticity and motivation. An opinion that can be bought and paid for, regardless of how the person actually feels, doesn’t carry any weight. Someone with integrity, whose audience can trust them, is much more interesting. Of course, there’s always a question of bias in any paid arrangement, but the best creators only work with places they enjoy and genuinely rate.

“A good influencer can tell a story, and help get new eyes on a restaurant. Yes, that can mean a few extra bookings on the night, but it can also help diners find a new favourite, or encourage someone to try something new. Whether we like it or not, influencing is how a lot of people make their decisions, and we can embrace that when it’s done well.

“The problem comes when there’s a shroud of mystery over the circumstances, or a lack of integrity behind the scenes. Deception is unfair to the person on the other end of the content.”

Charlievivante on Instagram: “The fundamental issue seems to be around the same misunderstanding, which is the difference between a food blogger and a food influencer. One writes for the love of it and occasionally accepts an invite. The other is a marketing tool you can pay to use, just like hiring a PR person or running Meta ads. It’s a transaction, not a scandal. It seems to me that most people on all sides of the argument don’t understand the difference, including the influencers themselves, and the murky distinction is part of what leads to this faux outrage. I built my entire freelance career from food blogging. Now clients pay me to tell people what they do is great. Am I now part of the scandalous group of people asking for payment for work? The majority of people named and shamed here are hobbyists, people with a nice Instagram who’ll often do hundreds of pounds’ worth of work in exchange for a free meal. I’ve worked with many of them on client campaigns. The ones who weren’t any good simply weren’t asked back. Anyone not declaring a paid partnership hasn’t got a leg to stand on, and that’s a real issue, but overwhelmingly it’s the small fish who’ve been picked on, not the actual villains. I’m also genuinely surprised at some of the businesses cheering this on, given that plenty of them have used influencers and bloggers in the past, including me. If you’ve been in this industry long enough, you understand how marketing works. This city is absolutely spoiled for people offering to do a lot for not very much, if you choose to use them. So why is hospitality still an industry where working for free is considered normal? Why is someone charging for their time and talent treated like some kind of bombshell?”

Leah.jay on Instagram: “Brilliant article 👏 I personally don’t see an issue with posting the names and fees of those contacted. If they back their fee privately with small, independent businesses then they should be able to back it publicly with the people who view/are influenced by their content. When I’m choosing a restaurant to eat at I will compare menu costs to pick one within my budget for that meal. Why would we expect restaurants not to be able to do the same when choosing how to spend a limited advertising budget? The whole influencer scene is widely unregulated and as someone who regularly eats out in Bristol this is a very useful balancing exercise between restaurant, customer and influencer. For balance, I also don’t see anything wrong with influencers charging for their time. They are entitled to remuneration for the time taken to visit, film, edit, post etc. Just all feels a bit smoke and mirrors sometimes and that’s as someone who just likes to eat nice food, must be a nightmare for indie businesses to navigate who are struggling to stay afloat as it is!”

MM: “For me the main positive can be authenticity and accessibility. I think people traditionally turn to content creators for realism. They want to see someone like them, with no contacts, no expensive setup, no marketing plan, and no celebrity budget, giving their honest opinions on something they actually care about. This can be extraordinarily successful, and I think is the main reason our micro-influencer campaigns perform better than when we use big creators. It’s easier to imagine yourself sat in a restaurant if someone ‘like you’ proves they can do it first. It’s a different effect than a food critic’s review, which usually presents the dining experience as something aspirational.

“On the flip side, the main negative is inauthenticity. Scrolling through a single account and seeing them enthusiastically declare each and every single restaurant to be ‘maybe the best in Bristol’ before reeling off the same copy pointers about price and seasonality, completely undermines what people look to these creators for. If I pay an influencer hundreds of pounds to promote my restaurant, there’s not a chance in hell they’re going to share truly honest opinions on it if disappointed.

“I saw comments on the Instagram post of part one of this study compare themselves to food critics and writers in defence of asking for pay, which I find laughable. Not only is this a slap in the face to people who’ve dedicated their lives to studying food, restaurants and the art of hospitality, but it also leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of the restaurants. When we invite an influencer in, it’s never a ‘free meal’ — it’s staffing, prep time, ingredients, interruption in service and more. I think a lot of these influencers are forgetting that they need these restaurants more than the restaurants need them.”

A final word from Meg — It seems to me that influencers are an important part of promoting restaurants and other hospitality businesses. When I think of a modern hospitality industry without them, it is clear to see that for many businesses it would be a lot harder to get discovered, and for many diners it clearly inspires excitement and inspiration when it comes to where to eat. But, as with any industry and especially one as nascent as this, there are serious issues with transparency, gaming the system and breaking the law at the expense of businesses and followers. You are reading this because you care about the hospitality industry and eating out — and therefore our aims are the same: to make sure that that industry flourishes. It can’t do that if there isn’t honesty, trust and transparency. It can’t do that if there are people regularly exploiting businesses for their own gain. You are aware of the costs and forces at play now — so you can make informed choices whether you are a restaurateur, restaurant-goer or content creator.

My intention with this article was to offer transparency and clarity where there was none, for anyone that may find it useful. Though it has been at a substantial personal cost, I have achieved that aim.

If there’s anything else you think The Bristol Sauce should investigate, please let us know.

The Bristol Sauce is an AI free publication — all our work is written and edited by humans.

Part one certainly incited a lot of conversation, which is a positive thing. This is a conversation that needs to be had. I’d like to reiterate that my concern is not that influencers charge for their services — people should be paid for their time and skills. My issue is that the average punter does not know who has been paid or incentivised, and who hasn’t. My issue is that restaurants are paying for content which is, in some cases, having its engagement artificially inflated.

In response to part one, many people have noted that they only provided rates because I asked for them. This is true — I did ask, in the guise of a new independent restaurant, and without them saying so, there was no way of me — or indeed any other new independent restaurant — knowing that these influencers do not always charge. I’d also like to point out, as per part one, that ten influencers (almost one third of the responders) did offer to create content solely in exchange for free food and drink.

But as I wrote above — conversation is a good thing. It is good journalistic practice to offer subjects the right to reply when there is an allegation of wrongdoing. As such, there will be a part three to this series, published this Thursday in place of a review, where we will hear from some of the influencers.

If you enjoy the work of The Bristol Sauce and want to show your support, please consider becoming a subscriber. If you’ve come from further afield or don’t want to become a subscriber at the moment but still want to show your support, you can buy me a coffee/pint/Suzuki Jimny here. Thank you!

For part two of this experiment, I wanted to know whether influencers actually drive footfall to restaurants and for that, I needed places that existed.

I chose three restaurants, each based in a slightly different area of Bristol, and asked them to contact the same three influencers. I have categorised the influencers and restaurants as follows, but to protect them, all the participants (willing and unwilling) in this experiment remain anonymous.

There’s a common misconception that influencers work for free, and are just ‘gifted’ food and experiences — and there is clearly a proportion that do operate like this. But many do not realise that the person who has just unearthed a new ‘hidden gem’ serving ‘the world’s best burger’ has sometimes been paid hundreds or thousands of pounds to do so. And the food and drinks are free as well, of course. For many influencers, this is very much a full time job, and often a well-paid one at that — or at least a lucrative side hustle. There’s nothing wrong with charging for your time and skills, as long as the person watching the content knows that it’s an advert.

But I did not know if these influencers were consistent in how much they charged. Had they quoted a price to Sake, my fake restaurant, because of a perceived value, or did they charge the same across the board? This is why I wanted to check the fees across three different restaurants — each serving a different cuisine, and possibly with a different perceived value.

I was relieved to see that these three influencers quoted the same across all three restaurants; they are consistent. It’s worth noting that the restaurants are all independent — some influencers charge more for chain restaurants, which seems fair.

I then worked with one of the Bristol restaurants to plan an influencer campaign, and the restaurant agreed to share the data found for use within this article. The influencers were all paid by the restaurant directly in this case as part of their campaign.

I worked with the restaurant to devise a system of measuring the impact each influencer had on bookings and spend per head. Measuring such impact is challenging but great care was taken to make the data as accurate and reliable as possible. We offered the followers of each influencer a small freebie that could be traced back to said influencer and that was redeemable over a two week period following the content being posted.

There were pros and cons to this approach. Firstly, there’s no guarantee that the people influenced would redeem said freebie, and the freebie was of relatively low monetary value, so it wouldn’t have been a deciding factor in people wanting to go to the restaurant. We needed this to be the case so that it wouldn’t skew the numbers, but it also could mean that people forgot about it or considered it unimportant and not worth redeeming.

We had each influencer post their videos with at least a two week buffer period before the next, to minimise crossover, and had the small influencer post first, then the medium, then the big.

We did not ask the influencers to mark the video as an advert, as we wanted to see what they would do naturally. The small influencer marked the video as #paidpartnership at the bottom of the caption and both the medium and the big influencer put ‘ad’ at the beginning of the caption.

So what influence do they actually have?

The big influencer brought nine people with them on their visit when they came to film. The restaurant had not specified how many people they could bring or how much they could spend. The staff reported that such a big group combined with the influencer wanting to film made the service more difficult logistically.

The big influencer also posted their video over a week later than they had said they would. This didn’t massively impact our plans, but it’s worth highlighting because if the restaurant had been following a specific marketing plan this could have caused a disruption.

None of the influencers tipped the staff. There was no food waste reported.

The average spend per head at this restaurant is £19.87. We cannot say for certain if the small and medium influencers actually drove traffic to the restaurant, and it is entirely possible that the tail of their influence is longer than two weeks. The big influencer did drive traffic, but on this occasion, not very much. According to our experiment, the total cost to the restaurant was around £1340 (made up of the cost of paying the influencers and the cost of the food and drink), and drove 15 redemptions of the freebie which we can reasonably assume is about the equivalent of £298.05 worth of custom. We also checked year-on-year data from the restaurant — which had not changed — and asked for staff testimonials about whether they had noticed any increase in custom, and they reported that they did not.

The owner of the restaurant said: “We’ve been running restaurants for a long time, long before content creators were the main source of food media, when newspapers and magazines had the ability to make or break your business with a review. We have always had really good relationships with the content creators in Bristol, big and small, and most have done posts or supported us for free outside of specific campaigns.

“We understand there is a lot of time that goes into creating the content and that it’s a full time job and therefore their time needs to be charged for. Unlike traditional media you don’t tend to see a specific uptick in business directly off the back of an influencer campaign but it works as part of a greater marketing eco-system, one which I believe is good value on the whole for food businesses, but certainly great value for the food scene in general. Outside of the specific impact on any one business what the rise in content creators, especially some of the bigger ones, has done for Bristol’s food scene in general in creating a landscape for businesses to enter is a huge value add and one that I hope continues to grow.”

There may be other benefits of using influencers, such as a restaurant’s uptake in following on social media from their posts. In this instance, the restaurant reported that they gained 6 followers in total from the three influencers’ content.

It’s worth noting that it’s entirely possible that if the restaurant was new, the uptake in visits would have been higher. The restaurant in question has been around a while and is probably familiar for most people in Bristol, and so might not have driven the same amount of traffic as something perceived to be new and exciting.

Though the same can likely be said from any form of marketing or PR, there’s also the problem that while commissioning a big influencer may drive a short increase in traffic, it drops off leaving the restaurant back at square one. I have heard instances of restaurants recruiting extra staff to manage such events, or running out of menu items leaving long-term customers disappointed, all in the name of unsustainable and ephemeral trade.

There’s also the disruption to other customers to consider — particularly if the influencer brings a film crew or ring lights (the lights used to better illuminate food and faces in the absence of good lighting), it can be disturbing to fellow diners. This also could be illegal, as restaurants are private property and therefore technically permission is required for filming. Likely if the influencer has entered into a contract with the restaurant this will already be covered, but it’s worth noting that the restaurant is required under the UK’s data protection laws (GDPR) to warn customers that filming is taking place with signs around the restaurant. As a frequent restaurant-goer, I have been filmed in restaurants many times without my permission. If I was to find such content online, I’d have the ‘right to erasure’ which would mean the influencer would have to remove the clip that contained me in it. According to this article by SRipLaw, influencer activity falls under commercial filming, which means that they have a responsibility to get permission, including possibly release forms, from anyone who may appear in their content. I wonder how many of them have considered this.

To help understand the results of my multi-part experiment, I needed to get to grips with the laws that govern this world. I was fortunate enough to be put in touch with a regulatory solicitor for food and retail who was able to shed some light on areas that my research couldn’t.

Advertising in the UK is regulated by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Trading Standards. The ASA has clear and comprehensive guidelines on influencer marketing. The ASA’s guide states: If an influencer receives payment or any other incentive (requested or unsolicited) from a brand, or they are otherwise personally or commercially connected to the brand (e.g., owner, employee, shareholder, director or have any other commercial or personal interest), any content featuring or referring to the brand will need to be obviously identifiable as advertising. This is a requirement under consumer protection law, enforced by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Trading Standards Services.

The data in part one suggests most influencers I spoke to are aware of this requirement — though perhaps not in great detail. In all other industries, it is the responsibility of the business or individual to know what the law is regarding their work, and influencing should be no different. According to our lawyer, it’s expensive to prosecute which is why it rarely happens in the case of individuals. Trading Standards would be the ones actually prosecuting, but they have limited time and tend to prioritise things that are dangerous rather than things that are misleading.

The lawyer said: “the ASA can’t fine people themselves, but they can warn people, make them take down the content, and repeat offenders get put on a ‘naughty list’. If someone repeatedly offends, Trading Standards would enforce it. We’d be looking at sanctions such as warning letters, enforcement notices, up to prosecuting and getting fined in court. There has to be public interest in taking them to court. That’s why they don’t usually pursue one post that’s misleading.

“The CMA has additional powers. They can fine up to 10% of turnover without going to court. But this is unlikely. What they can also do is make them sign an undertaking, which is a legal document they sign saying ‘I will not do XYZ’, and then if they breach that the consequences are more severe.

“The ASA have AI mechanisms to search for key terms to find adverts that are misleading.

“We have seen the ASA pick on burying the ad notice in the hashtags and in the read more section, that’s in breach of the guidance. The guidance is what the regulators use to decide what’s misleading.”

Interestingly, the ASA goes on to confirm that the restaurants or brands the influencer is working with also have a responsibility to make sure the content is clearly marked: ‘When a particular ‘advertorial’ is found to breach the Code, both the publisher (i.e., the influencer) and the brand will be named in the ASA ruling.’

But what does obviously identifiable as advertising actually mean? Many influencers bury the word ‘ad’ in the hashtags, knowing that not many people will click to see the extended caption of their post, let alone read each of the hashtags.

I’m afraid that #guest, #invited, #PR, #gifted and other similarly ambiguous additions don’t cut it either — unless it says ad or advert at the start of the content and on each photo if on stories, it is breaking the law. None of the other words mean anything legally. It’s my opinion that social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok are not doing enough to make the labelling of ads clear. It is likely both the restaurants and the influencers who are hesitant to be overt with their labelling; restaurants might want the content to look like an organic recommendation and influencers don’t want to look like straight up advertisers.

Upon further research, I discovered that the CMA published ‘fake reviews guidance’ in July of 2025, which the detail-oriented among you can read here. This guidance provided further answers I was looking for.

The guidance makes clear that it is against the law to post an advert that has been ‘incentivised’ without declaring it is an advert. The guidance clearly indicates that incentivising includes being given freebies and is not limited to monetary payment. It also states that any label placed below the ‘read more’ section in a caption or in the hashtags is against the law.

Thus it is both the responsibility of the influencer and the restaurant to make sure that the content is very clearly marked as an ‘advert’ right at the beginning of the caption and/or image/video. It also means that incentivised Google reviews from influencers, which are now often being included as part of content packages as we saw in part one, are also against the law.

Perhaps one of the most important takeaways from this guidance is that the responsibility lies just as much with the restaurant owner or ‘trader’ in the CMA documents as it does with the influencer, and it is them that would also be liable for fines if these laws are broken.

The lawyer added: “in short, under the DMCC act, there’s a general catch-all rule that if it’s likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision that the consumer would not have taken otherwise — so basically it’s if anything you do would change a consumer’s purchasing decision that is potentially an unfair practice which is unlawful. There’s a lot of practices that are always banned, such as not declaring an ad.”

When I ran the experiment in part one, with the fake restaurant Sake, I discovered that many influencers are artificially inflating their engagement and leaving comments on other influencer’s posts in a mutual agreement to fool the algorithm.

According to our lawyer, this is more of a contractual issue: “the restaurant in question would have to take the influencer to court over the contractual arrangement. It would be fraudulent misrepresentation, which gets them damages/right to end the contract. It’s contractual sanctions as opposed to criminal, and it’s a clear contractual issue if the people ‘engaging’ are not local. But it could also tip into misleading consumers, which may itself fall under the fake reviews guidance of the DMCC Act.”

The lawyer also confirmed that if an influencer guarantees positive coverage before having an experience, that would fall under the DMCC’s guidance on fake reviews and could be punishable in a criminal court.

The ASA publishes recent rulings every Wednesday on their website. Some recent judgements include a TikToker being ruled against for saying a meal kit was made by Michelin-starred chefs in fact it wasn’t, another for swearing in an ad which is against the CAP code and one for promoting Lidl bakery items on Instagram which are unhealthy: “The CAP code required that persons must not pay for ads for an identifiable less healthy food or drink product to be placed on the internet”.

New legislation, which came into effect earlier this year, restricts advertising of certain foods, including burgers, pizzas, ice cream, pastries and cakes. Organic content is allowed, but anything paid-for — which includes ‘gifted’ meals — is covered, meaning in some cases it is now illegal for influencers to promote unhealthy food. The exemptions to this include small-medium enterprises with under 250 employees. This means that small independent businesses do not need to adhere to these rules, but any larger businesses do. Thus, an influencer promoting a burger from Danny’s Burgers is allowed, an influencer promoting a burger from Five Guys, which is a chain, is not.

Many of the ASA’s rulings are against celebrities including Kerry Katona and Arabella Chi. The increasingly blurred line between being a celebrity and an influencer is one to pay close attention to, and the ASA is likely more concerned about this because of the higher numbers of followers that celebrities tend to have.

So what have I learnt from all this research? The lack of transparency with which the influencer world operates is troubling. Influencers are a significant part of many industries now, not just restaurants, and what I have established is at play in Bristol will be very similar across the country, and indeed in other parts of the world. Some influencers clearly operate in a way that is transparent and meaningful, but others are knowingly or unknowingly breaking multiple laws, misleading consumers and exploiting businesses in an industry that is already on its knees.

It may not seem like a big deal if you go and get a burger that’s not very good because some bloke on Instagram told you to, but I think on the whole this speaks to a bigger concern — it is getting harder and harder to discern what is ‘real’ and what is not on the internet, and that’s only likely to get worse.

Behind everything you see online there are forces at play — algorithms, big businesses, political allegiances, investments and undisclosed money. The practices I have outlined in this piece are true across all industries; not just hospitality. Beauty and misleading supplement advice are already more strictly regulated by the ASA, the CMA and Trading Standards, as they are more likely to be dangerous.

So what can you do if you want to limit the impact that this content has on your life? Aside from deleting social media entirely, there are steps you can take to protect yourself somewhat. Unfollow people who might be giving you ‘recommendations’ without being transparent. Question why someone is telling you to eat somewhere or buy something. Ask people whose content you enjoy to be clearer about where they have received freebies or a payment. And, if worst comes to worst, you can report people you believe to be flouting the rules to the ASA here.

To any influencers reading this — whether you consider yourself an influencer, a content creator, or just someone that is occasionally ‘gifted’ things such as free stays, free food or products — please remember that you have a serious responsibility to not mislead the people who have placed their trust in you by following you. Lead by example.

As mentioned in the introduction, part three will give some of the influencers addressed in this investigation the right to reply, along with further thoughts from restaurateurs. That will be coming this Thursday, 21 May. Subscribe now to be the first to read it.

References and further reading:

https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/undisclosed-brand-partnerships-platform-policies

https://sriplaw.com/blog/why-social-media-influencers-cannot-claim-personal-use-when-their-accounts-are-commercial/

https://www.asa.org.uk/codes-and-rulings/non-compliant-social-media-influencers.html

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-media-endorsements-guidance-for-content-creators/social-media-endorsements-being-transparent-with-your-followers

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fake-reviews-cma208

https://www.asa.org.uk/resource/less-healthy-food-and-drink-advertising-guidance.html

https://britishfilmcommission.org.uk/guidance/regulations/

Extracts from the DMCC Guidance:

1.1 There is a new banned practice relating to reviews in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act). It sets out behaviour that is automatically unfair and illegal. It covers fake reviews, concealed incentivised reviews and requires traders not to publish consumer reviews (and information derived from them) in a misleading way. Traders publishing reviews must also take steps to prevent the publication of fake reviews and reviews where incentives are hidden, as well as information derived from reviews which is false or misleading.

2.9 A review conceals the fact it has been incentivised if:

(a) a person has been commissioned to provide the review, and

(b) that fact is not made apparent (whether through the contents of the review or otherwise).

This would include missing, obscure or hidden disclosure of the fact that the review has been incentivised.

2.10 Commissioning can take many forms and is not limited to making monetary payments.

Examples of commissioning include, but are not limited to, being asked to write a review in exchange for:

(a) money, 

(b) commissions,

(c) discounts or vouchers,

(d) leases or loans free of charge or on more favourable terms than those offered to the general public,

(e) products given free of charge (‘freebies’),

(f) free stays,

(g) invitations to events etc.

3.3 Anyone who engages in the commercial practice of either submitting or commissioning banned reviews will be in breach of the banned practice. This includes professional reviewers, journalists, content creators (such as bloggers, influencers, online streamers, celebrities, social media personalities)

3.5 Where it is permissible to post a review that has been incentivised on a platform, the review must be clearly identifiable as incentivised. This must be made clear to anyone engaging with the review, so that it is apparent that they are viewing incentivised content. Usually, it will be necessary for the reviewer at least to label the review prominently as incentivised, namely, as an advert. The label should not have an ambiguous meaning or be placed where it might not be seen.

When I cast my mind back to being a university student some fifteen years ago, I remember being hungry. This isn’t me attempting to make platitudes concerning a hunger for knowledge or anything quite so nauseating. I mean, like, literally hungry. All the time. Short on cash and graced with the vestiges of a teenager’s metabolism, I obsessed over food. Like many of us, it was at this point that I was metaphorically press-ganged into learning how to cook. Grateful as I was and am to have this skill foisted upon me out of sheer necessity, the desire to nourish myself was not all I longed for. I became obsessed with eating out and subsequently, the food hall culture of Auckland City; tantalised through plate glass by steaming hot bowls of things-in-broth.

The Chinese diaspora and the formative effect its cuisine exerted over me from an early age is something I have discussed on this platform before. And it must be said that student living proved a sufficient hindrance in my continued enjoyment of it. But whenever my meagre maintenance loan would allow, I would indulge in one of my favourites, Lanzhou la mian or Lanzhou-style beef noodles: hand-pulled wheat noodles served simply with stewed beef, consommé, and fresh herbs such as coriander leaf and spring onion. I believe the simplicity to be this dish’s badge of pride.

Walking up Park Street on an oddly chilly May evening, I’m reminded of why I wouldn’t usually do this on a Saturday. We spot three separate hen parties trudging their way up and down Bristol’s main student thoroughfare, one half of one of the groups dragging the other half, screaming mercilessly about nothing that any of us can decipher. Groups of vape-toting lads leer menacingly out of sports bars at the passersby, hollering football chants at a volume equal to the hens and I’m beginning to ask myself if we’ve made a mistake.

Thankfully, we are eventually afforded solace from Bristol’s own version of la passeggiata by newly arrived restaurant, Lanzhou Hand-Pulled Noodles. A blue and white neon haven welcomes us, flanked with red vinyl chairs reminiscent of a North American diner. The place is packed with students, faces obscured by the plumes of steam emanating from the bowls in front of them.

We are proffered English-language menus and order quickly, the wintery air and expedient schlep up the hill have exacerbated our appetites to the point of maddening desperation. Black plastic buzzers beckon us back to the till within minutes, where three big bowls of the eponymous beef noodles are placed on the counter fresh from the stove (£12.50).

The setup here reminds me of certain French bistros, where metal gastros are filled with room temperature accoutrements, ready to be doled out in a self-service style. Presented are five sides (£2 for a mixture of your choosing): shredded potato and dried chillies passed through oil, retaining a pleasant crunch, kelp salad, abundant with umami, boiled peanuts, tofu skin, and blanched bean sprouts, both deceptively spicy. In the centre and pride of place is the largest bowl of chilli oil I have ever seen, hypnotically red, and so deep it appears fathomless.

The result is quite overwhelming. Where once there was hunger, now the indeterminable pang of worry that we may have indeed over-ordered resides. Blisteringly hot and resembling an actual mountain in terms of quantity, I am taken back to those food halls in delightful reverie. All that we hear for the next ten minutes are the sounds of satisfied slurping filling the room. This is comfort food for the student masses. And us.

For a stab at variety we have ordered a dry, soupless version of the beef noodles and a stir-fried chicken iteration (£9.80). The chicken dish has much less in the way of heady aroma when compared to the beef, but I might suggest this to someone slightly less adventurous with their ordering, satisfactorily savoury, oily and accented with celery. To cut through the richness of the meal we are brought three glasses of a delicious sour plum drink (£2) which we’re told is quite traditional and we quaff it back eagerly.

Not content with simply following the path well-trod, I order the one thing on the menu which isn’t translated into English. This turns out to be a cold pig ear salad (£5.40), dressed with garlic paste, chilli, and coriander leaf. I dress it further with black vinegar and soy sauce (available on every table), intermittently returning to it between large mouthfuls of beef and broth. Cartilaginous and resembling the flavour of unsmoked bacon, I wouldn’t venture that this would sit well with a general western audience but I enjoy it immensely.

As I have my face inches from my bowl, seemingly tethered to the table by way of noodle, I notice someone sit down with us out of the corner of my eye. Mr. Yu, the proprietor, a bemused smirk on his face, contently makes himself at home at our table. He wants to know how I’m getting on with the pig ears and informs me that the reason they’re on the menu is for one regular customer who requested them. If that isn’t community spirit, I don’t know what is.

At the time of writing, this place has no listing on Google Maps and zero social media presence; a rare anomaly in today’s culinary landscape. Mr. Yu hopes that addressing this in the coming weeks will improve trade. The only mention of this place online is a lone Bristol24/7 article positing that it should be open soon. Well, it now is. And by golly, am I happy about that.

All words and photos by Jason Jay Pridham

Lanzhou Hand-Pulled Noodles, 85 Park Street, BS1 5PJ

The Bristol Sauce is an AI free publication — all our work is written and edited by humans.

I’ve been working on this piece since last September, which is the longest I’ve ever spent writing an article. Influencers are frequently in the news, and there’s almost as many opinion pieces about them as there are content creators themselves. In recent months, everyone from Gordon Ramsay to Jeremy King has had something to say on the subject. But there are astoundingly few facts available.

And so I set out to uncover some. That’s what this piece is: facts, not opinion. I shall leave you to make your own judgement about who you choose to follow, where you choose to eat, and why.

Though similar research to part one has been carried out by my friends at The Hunger in America, as far as I am aware the research in part two has never been done before and an investigation of this depth into influencers is globally unprecedented. With that in mind, if you find the following information interesting and useful, I hope you’ll share it. I think it deserves to be known and referenced widely.

I’ve been very lucky to have had a lot of help in the writing of this piece. I’d like to offer my utmost thanks to all those who helped in the research, community proofreading and checking of the article, in no particular order: Jon Robinson, Anne Marie Taylor, Tamara Collin, Miguel Alzugaray, Earnest Graham, Mark Endicott, Jonathan Swain, Michael Hawkins, Natalie Lewendon, Luke Hussey, Jen Forster, Henry Bell, PXandTarts, and the staff from the restaurants mentioned in part two.

I haven’t put either part of this investigation behind a paywall, because I think revealing this information is in the public interest. That said, if you live in Bristol and you want to support the work of The Bristol Sauce and see more investigations like this, please consider becoming a subscriber. If you’ve come from further afield or don’t want to become a subscriber at the moment but still want to show your support, you can buy me a coffee/pint/Suzuki Jimny here.

This piece is long, and so I’ve divided it into two parts - the second will be coming on Monday, 18 May. But I think it’s well worth reading, so I hope you’ll stay with me. Enjoy!

Influencer (noun): a person active on social media who is able to influence people’s opinions or to persuade them to follow a particular lifestyle or buy a particular product.

Influencers. Whether you love them, hate them or love to hate them, the chances are that unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have — at some point — been influenced — particularly if you like going to restaurants. In the last few years, the practice of influencing has exploded. Statistica estimates that the global amount spent on influencer marketing reached over $32 billion (£23.7 billion) in 2025; three times what it was in 2020. Influencers have an outsized impact in the restaurant world, where attention is key and margins are slimmer than ever.

There are many opinions circulating about influencers, but few facts. There is limited transparency about the costs associated with this type of marketing and the impact a restaurant can expect, and Bristol’s local hospitality scene is no exception. This leaves restaurateurs and business owners exposed. Given that they already have to be experts in hospitality, HR, accounting and marketing, the additional pressure of monitoring and tracking the impact of an influencer campaign on the bottom line will soon become ridiculous. As such, I thought I could help.

With this in mind, I have conducted an experiment. The intent of this experiment is not only to help those running restaurants, but also to inform you, as diners, about the forces at play behind your social media algorithms.

I had a plan of my own, which I’ll reveal in part two, but while enacting it I came across a brilliant piece published in the States about influencers: ‘Eat, Pay, Love’, by Earnest Graham and published in The Hunger. Reading Graham’s work gave me the idea of creating a fake restaurant in Bristol, which he’d done in Chicago with the aim of finding out how much influencers were charging and whether they would guarantee positive coverage.

I messaged Graham to check he was happy with me replicating his work in the UK and he was incredibly supportive, even offering to help proofread my piece.

So I started by creating a fake restaurant — a very good looking one, I might add — called Sake. I set up an Instagram page for Sake, which I populated with pictures from my trip to Japan last year. I created a website and launched it, with a custom domain and email address for my made-up manager, Joss. I wrote a menu, a very enticing one — so enticing, in fact, that within an hour of the website launching I had a journalist emailing Joss to ask for exclusive coverage in national papers. I’ve since taken the website down, as it was expensive to maintain the domain, but the Instagram page remains live, if anyone wishes to look it up.

I used Sake’s Instagram profile to reach out to 48 influencers based in Bristol and the surrounding area. I sent an identical message to each:

“Hi [Name],

Hope you’re well. My name’s Joss, I’m contacting you from Sake, a new modern Japanese restaurant coming soon to Bristol. We will be serving a refined, innovative menu from chefs who have worked in some of the best restaurants in the world. You can view the sample menus on our website.

Our marketing team is drawing up a list of creators ahead of the restaurant’s public launch to build awareness and momentum. We are reaching out ahead of time to help us plan our content strategy.

We’d love to explore a potential collaboration where you visit Sake, enjoy the menu and create content to share with your audience.

Could you please share your current rates for a dedicated post or story (Instagram, TikTok or both) and let us know:

• What’s typically included in your content package?

• Do you offer any guarantees regarding tone or messaging (i.e., a positive representation of the experience)?

Thank you very much,

Joss Waite, General Manager”

I got responses from 33 of the 48. Even though I’d asked for their rates, I wasn’t expecting so many to charge and I was surprised by how much the prices varied. I suspect there is little transparency even between influencers, so benchmarking is probably nigh-on impossible. I’m glad to present an opportunity to rectify that:

Some key things to note about the above graph:

1. There were ten influencers who agreed to create the content only in exchange for free food and drink, usually for two people. I have not listed these on the graph, but their follower counts ranged from 600 to 24,000. Five of these influencers said they would post without labelling the content as an advert, which is illegal, and another was ambiguous.

2. For the remaining 23 influencers, it was assumed that they would get free food and drink on top of the monetary payment.

3. The prices quoted did not include any bartering by me/Joss, and there is a chance that influencers would be willing to compromise on pricing if a restaurant asked.

4. The influencers may have mentally attributed a certain value to my fake restaurant, which was designed to look ‘high-end’, and may have inflated prices accordingly.

Creating the fake restaurant revealed more than just the fees that these influencers charge. Firstly, as soon as I started messaging them, many began commenting on my posts and sharing things to their stories – before I’d agreed to commission them. For a restaurant on the brink of opening, messaging every influencer in the book and asking for a quote seems therefore a great way of creating ‘noise’ without having to spend any money. For the diner, however, it’s misleading. What might look like genuine hype is in fact a load of people for whom anything between £50-£700+ is on the line from a business lead that they want to keep warm. As we’ll see later, misleading consumers is illegal in the UK and could lead to penalties for both the restaurant and the creator.

Several of the influencers I contacted included a Google review in their content package, with some mentioning how many views their Google accounts get. This bodes badly. Google ratings are one of the most prevalent benchmarks of restaurant quality, but now it is clear they are being bought. This is also against the law as it breaches the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Act 2024.

For restaurants interested in commissioning influencers, know this: follower counts do not necessarily guarantee views. This can work both ways — videos can end up with way more views than follower counts would indicate, or far fewer. It is often determined by how much engagement a video or post gets immediately after it is posted, which then determines how much the algorithm pushes it. Engagement, in this case, is anyone liking, commenting, reposting or sharing the post.

In the above images, you can see that Jack has just under 42,000 followers. Some of his videos have had as many as one million views, and he has pinned these to the top of his page so that his highest view counts appear first, which may be appealing to potential collaborators. Jack’s videos generally get more views than he has followers, though they fluctuate from 14,000 to 36,000 views just days apart.

Jack is not alone. Em Webbs Food, pictured above, generally gets only a fifth of the views on her videos that her follower count suggests. Hannies Hungry has just under 5,000 followers and views vary between 500 and just a few thousand. Restaurateurs should be careful to look for average views and not followers.

This might be why some accounts feel justified in charging so much more than others. However, one of the highest chargers on the chart — Natalie Brereton — has an average of around 8,000 views on her nine most recent videos at the time of writing (though most of these videos are about pop culture and not food).

As I spent time scrolling through Sake’s feed, I was struck by how many of the influencers were commenting on each other’s posts. I became fascinated, in a sort of horrified way, about how much of this was just one big circle of faux influence.

As you can see in the above photos, the top comments are almost always from other influencers. So who are they actually influencing? Perhaps they are doing this informally, to show support to their fellow content creators. But research suggests something more sinister may be at play. I encountered messaging groups on Instagram with members based all over the world who swap likes and comments on each other's posts. These groups get flagged and deactivated by Instagram, as the parent company Meta is presumably aware that this fools the algorithm.

Creators have got around this by writing messages to the group in which letters are replaced by numbers to prevent automatic detection. These ‘l1kes’ and ‘c0mm3nts’ groups can be found quite easily — simply search ‘engagement groups Instagram’ on Google — and they do not seem to have any geographic restrictions. This means restaurateurs may think they are getting good engagement from Bristolians when they commission a video, when it is in fact a set of people with no intention of ever visiting their restaurant who could be based anywhere in the world. This, too, could be illegal in the UK. Depending on the agreement with the restaurant, it could be in breach of contractual law. False engagement could also be misleading to consumers.

This is very apparent when you examine some influencers’ engagement-to-view ratios. Average engagement rates (the number of comments, likes and shares a piece of content gets) on Instagram generally hover around 2-3 per cent. Ciaone_UK_foodie, who appears to be based in Bristol and has ‘DM for collabs’ listed on their profile, seems to be smashing the engagement. Take a look at the screenshots below:

Here we can see that this influencer got 876, 832 and 782 views on their last three videos, at the time of writing. Look at the likes and comments on the same three videos:

The first video has 876 views, and 143 likes. That is a 16.3 per cent engagement rate, before you bring the comments into the equation. The second video is 15.6 per cent and the third 12.3 per cent, also without comments — this is well above average for engagement.

Furthermore, if you dive into the comment sections, it is abundantly clear that almost all of the engagement is coming from other influencers. Often they don’t even bother with words.

In the process of conducting this research, I interviewed an influencer — one of the ones who had also been approached by Sake — and the general manager of a Michelin Guide restaurant for their perspectives on the phenomenon of influencing. Their thoughts are peppered through parts one and two of this article.

The reason all of this matters is because when influencers reach out to restaurants, or respond to messages about packages, they often back up their prices with statistics about their followers, views and engagement levels. It is clear that in some cases, these statistics may be at the very least heavily inflated. If a restaurant that had commissioned an influencer became aware that this was the case, then the influencer would have broken the law and be in breach of their contract.

Another concern was that so many of the influencers who responded to Sake were happy to guarantee positive coverage. Responses ranged from saying that they’d bring negative feedback directly to the restaurant and that anything that went online would be positive, to assurances that they would not post anything if the experience was negative. Only one influencer responded that if the experience was bad, they would say as such online and would expect to get paid. Whilst this shows the influencer has no wish to mislead followers with exclusively positive reviews, it also creates an odd situation: a restaurateur paying for negative marketing. Only this influencer, out of the 33 that responded, would be willing to share any negatives with their followers. Others said they wouldn’t post and wouldn’t expect any payment. Most said that this had never happened to them.

Astoundingly, several influencers responded that they wouldn’t visit a restaurant they wouldn’t enjoy. This suggests that they are able to see into the future, and even more amazingly, into the future of a restaurant that doesn’t exist. One influencer said the following:

“Regarding the content, we always offer a positive representation of the experience, as we carefully select brands we genuinely believe in to keep our page a positive resource for our audience. To maintain full integrity and transparency: if we were to have a genuinely negative experience, we would terminate the contract, refrain from posting any content, and would not accept payment for the ad. We’ve never had this happen with a paid collaboration because of our careful selection process.”

When questioned on their ‘careful selection process’, they said: “we examine the menu, the vibes, the way the food looks, any other reviews we’ve heard of, any info from word of mouth about the restaurant and then go from there”. This is remarkable, given that the restaurant they selected in this instance has managed to pass the ‘careful selection process’ despite the fact that it is entirely made up.

Whether some of these influencers can actually tell the difference between a good and a bad experience is also uncertain. Watching their reels through Sake’s Instagram, I came across one line that stayed with me: “the authenticity of that slap factor is just insane”. You can’t argue with that.

On a personal note, spending time on Sake’s Instagram was thrilling at first, giving a fascinating insight into how this world works, or doesn’t work. But before long I started to feel really depressed by it. It was like driving past a car crash — it was horrible to watch but I couldn’t look away. Every video was almost identical, and the whole thing started to feel like an episode of Black Mirror. The more I realised that many of the influencers were just in one enormous circle, influencing each other with the same regurgitated content and charging restaurants for it, the more miserable I felt at the state of the world and social media. It was a relief to log out of Sake’s account and back into my own, which is filled instead with videos of cats and people falling over.

Creating Sake had given me an enormous insight into the world of influencing in Bristol — the fees at stake, the inflated statistics, fake engagement, and potential law breaking.

But I wasn’t done yet. I wanted to know whether these influencers could actually drive footfall in the real world, and for that, I needed some real restaurants…

Part two of The True Cost of Influencing is coming on Monday, May 18. Subscribe now to be the first to read it.

All words by Meg Houghton-Gilmour

The Bristol Sauce is an AI free publication — all our work is written and edited by humans.

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“This is Farah”, said Isabel. “Oh”, we said. “And who is Farah?”

Rewind five minutes, and we’d double parked outside the Hilton in Cardiff having come to meet our friends who had just flown from Brazil to the UK for a sustainability awards ceremony. Yes, really. Isabel was outside puffing away on her tenth cigarette of the morning. Celso was still up in the bedroom, presumably rehearsing his acceptance speech. In his absence we were presented with João, with no more of an explanation than “he’s Brazilian too”, swiftly followed by Cris. And then Erland.

We had meticulously planned a day in Cardiff for two tourists, starting with pastries at Tŷ Melin, followed by a tour of the castle, then various pubs and a slap-up dinner — all of which we more than owed them after being the beneficiaries of their incredible Curitiban hospitality last year.

After more than doubling the group of tourists in our charge, the day inevitably got away from us and so we ditched the bakery visit in favour of 11am pints in Cardiff Castle’s gift shop. But we made it as planned to Parallel, an offshoot of acclaimed steak restaurant Pasture ready for some dinner. Brazilians love meat, Pasture is great — the plan was (almost) flawless.

A promptly ordered beetroot negroni doubled down on the drink’s inherent bitterness to good effect, while a virgin kimchi and tomato was as good as you’re going to get for a bloody Mary without a good glug of vodka. Or, indeed, cachaça. We don’t discriminate when it comes to getting drunk.

A round of beef fat flatbreads were ordered for the table without further glancing down the menu. These were straight from the Erst playbook, if somewhat larger, flatter and less pudgy than the Mancunian version. Thoroughly zebra-striped from the grill, dripping with melted beef fat and with a gentle prickle of chilli to warm and enliven.

Pasture sprung up in Bristol in 2018 when owner Sam Elliott presciently jumped ship from the sinking Jamie Oliver empire, and has since expanded (slowly and sensibly) to include Cardiff and Birmingham. While the main Cardiff branch majors on fire cooking, sharing steaks and irresistibly moreish short rib croquettes, Parallel, right next door, is a smaller, more experimental venue.

To a backdrop of exposed bricks and dimmed pendants we sat perched on orange stools along an L-shaped bar with a prime view of the grill. Maybe not the best for conversation but we managed well given the unexpected additional travellers. And anyway, we’d had the last few hours in Blue Bell and Tiny Rebel to practice our Portuguese, English and Welsh.

Parallel gracefully accommodated the extra three bodies, and the advantage of the inflated group was that we could try near enough everything on the menu. The famous short rib croquettes hadn’t made the journey from the mothership. Instead, a more Welsh-leaning alternative of leek imbued with Caerphilly cheese came two-to-a-plate, leaving us to fight over the lone remainder. Pop the shell and the reward was a gushing ooze of cheesy allium goodness. Splodges of black garlic brought mellow, caramelised umami notes that improve anything from meat to veg to cardboard.

A similar nod to Wales came in the cockles scattered over a grassy tangle of charred asparagus spears and just-wilted leaves of wild garlic, while chicken thigh and prawn toast remedied the fresh-to-deep-fried-thing ratio. The hunks of bird were fried hard, craggy, more crunchy than crisp, losing a little moisture along the way but saved by a downpour of both sticky BBQ sauce — ever so slightly saccharine — and a blue cheese-enriched ranch that could inspire a couple of hundred words from Tim Hayward. The real winner was a prawn mayo, at once murky and sweet, and as creamy as melting ice cream on a hot day. It did a sterling job taking multiple dunks of crustaceaned bread and also worked a treat slathered onto the chicken, or teamed with the asparagus and cockles.

The Brazilians wanted to be sure of at least a decent amount of steak, and having witnessed them at a churrasco, I can testify to the amount of beef they can put away. A monolithic slab of T-bone came well rested, with a thick, salty crust and the pink-red hue of forced rhubarb within. A potent jus only doubled down on the beefiness, leaving all parties defeated much sooner than had been anticipated, like Brazil in any World Cup post 2002.

The pork chop had been basted in a char siu-inspired marinade and sat in a glossy oyster sauce lake, freckled with drops of fat and bicolour sesame seeds. As a nation of pork lovers and inventors of feijoada (don’t tell the Portuguese) this was always going to come under scrutiny from around the table. It got ten thumbs up, though I’d have liked more of the caramelised, five spice-fragranced savour of the Cantonese roast meat.

Over the course of a year of travel in which we befriended Isobel and Celso, we ate plenty of seafood. In Brazil, the best was fried ribs of tambaqi — a hulking river monster dominating the Amazon — found in a market stall on the edge of Manaus. This thoroughly British treatment of hake, plonked in a pool of butter and trickled with teeny brown shrimp, capers and finely diced gherkin, certainly wouldn’t embarrass us on the world stage. The fish had been barbecued to crisp up the skin, while the flesh below flaked away in big, pearlescent chunks.

For a restaurant chain which focuses on meat, ‘the carrot’ seems to have become something of a signature. A gigantic root, easily six inches and with the girth of a rounders bat, took up the majority of the elongated white serving plate. Sliced into thick coins with the same deference as a prime steak, it was fudgy-sweet but with enough bite to keep it from veering into roast dinner territory. A splodge of silky smooth, gently nutty cashew cream below, a scatter shot of crisped chickpeas on top and a zhuzh of zhoug combined to make a meatless dish that apparently they can’t take off the menu — having now tried it I’m not surprised it has initiated the biggest cult following for an orange whopper since MAGA.

Other sides were more Richarlison than Ronaldinho. Rosti fries the colour of autumn straw comprised densely-packed cuboids of shredded potato, though the advertised “dashi” and “chicken” from the menu were shy to the extent of hidden. Similarly, the Caesar dressing on a mixed leaf salad was rather parsimoniously applied; you’d think now Gentleman’s Relish has been cruelly removed from supermarket shelves that this would be a sensible use for surplus anchovies.

In a clever callback to the unexpected star dish, the best of the dessert offerings was a carrot cake laced with sesame, and glazed, as earlier on, in maple syrup. Blanketed in melted Beauvale blue for a classic British cake/cheese vibe, and topped with a flurry of walnuts, it was at once novel and familiar.

We left our international accomplices back at the Hilton, jet-lagged, full and reassured that we weren’t joking when we said British food has improved considerably in the last few decades.

Parallel was an unparalleled success — witty, delicious and surprising. Whether the jet-setting Brazilians won their eco-trophy remains to be seen.

All words by PXandTarts, all photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour

Parallel by Pasture, 11 High St, Cardiff, CF10 1AW

The Bristol Sauce is an AI free publication — all our work is written and edited by humans.

A one-off: Street party with Wizzy Chung and the Bianchis Group

The Bianchis team are hosting Wizzy Chung for a St Stephen’s street party outside Cotto and Pasta Ripiena. Wizzy is ‘the kimchi queen’, best known for her restaurant Tiger Mum and before that the bonkers but brilliant Sky Kong Kong. Head down if you have

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It’s out there.

Somewhere in the darkness beyond the capabilities of ears and eyes but not beyond the rim of intuition: the Pacific Ocean, or the South China sea to be more precise.

It flows through the clamour of the market, not in body but in spirit, its salt still clinging to the gills of banana fish that flash their silvered skins through chargrill flames. A woman clears a place at a foldout table and gestures that I sit, she brings kopi; a sweet and powerful coffee, thick with condensed milk. Woks flare; orange bursts briefly reflected in the tarpaulin stretched between stalls that act either as sunshades or shelter against sudden downpours from electrical storms. My host places down a plate of rice, rich with the flavour of stock and sharp with the coral heart of sour calamansi, fresh chilli and salt — over which blackened flakes of that banana fish are draped.

This is Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo. This place is the ‘Filipino market’ as it’s known to the locals due to the high concentration of immigrant sellers from the nearby Philippines and the food is both cheap and delicious. Despite the coffee, the warmth of the evening and my many travelled miles wrap around me and I sink further into my plastic chair. If I close my eyes I could sleep and no doubt dream about the constant push and pull of the ocean. It’s the thing that unceasingly penetrates the senses, keeping the market, the sellers and the island moving and what keeps me travelling in the allure of all that is capable in this southeast corner of the world’s largest continent.

Two decades on, that experience remains my closest and only brush with Filipino food. That is, until now. Looking out on the Bristol docks and vacantly imagining that these green mud-slicked trenches where the River Avon and River Frome feed the floating Harbour are in some way the same waterways that connect to the somewhat seven and a half thousand or more islands that make up the archipelagic Philippines, one has to wonder why that is.

Travel anywhere in the UK outside of Earl’s Court’s ‘Little Manilla’ and the gastronomic translation of the entire nation seems to quickly diminish. Why is Filipino food fighting for a place at the table against the more mainstream heavyweights of east and south-east Asian cuisine?

This question simmers as I take a lunchtime table at Rice and Shine, Wapping Wharf’s latest edition which has opened in Cargo One in the spot previously held by the recently departed Daily Noodles. The restaurant, which brightly brands itself in a remodelling of the national flag is, in every sense, Filipino (with Filipino dishes making up over two thirds of the menu), yet labels itself as ‘Asian Fusion’ and spares a few pixels on the menu grid for a couple of riffs that could come from any Japanese or Thai playbook.

But nice as these things are and as well as they may be executed, it’s not somewhere I want to go. It is therefore a shame on ordering the kwek kwek (a Filipino street snack of deep fried quail’s eggs) we’re told they’re not available and have to opt for the citrus edamame (£4.99). Good news however arrives in the only novel drink on the list, a cold can of soursop Guyabano Nectar (£2.99) which is as sweet and thick and tangy as I imagine kefir-whipped custard to be, and serves to be most refreshing. Letdown soon retaliates, though, with the arrival of the edamame, with no hint of citrus and moderate freshness. Quite simply, I’ve had better and here the little green pods feel tired and trite. And it’s this gentle flip-flopping that sets the tone for the rest of the meal as we make our way into the ‘sizzling plates’ main courses.

First comes the lechon kawali (£13.99), a must-try, lechon being the revered national dish and centrepiece of absolutely anything worth celebrating that begs the question: ‘if there’s no lechon, is it really a party?’. Served here alongside a brilliant white hemisphere of rice, the pork belly did all the right things; soft and succulent with that hard-hat of crispy, salty, deep-fried skin.

The sizzling sisig (£12.99) arrived sizzling, an egg yolk gently losing its structural integrity over a jumble of chopped pork, tofu and liver paté. This was it. This is what I had been searching for. Scooping in forkfuls of this I was transported, to where is irrelevant, it was familiar yet new, in its act — it was different.

Lastly came the kaldereta beef stew (£13.99) with flavours of peanut and tomato. This had nothing on its predecessor. Whilst the beef was tender, I felt the stew itself lacked a key ingredient: time.

But gladly switch again we did to finish the meal with the memorable, although slightly bonkers, Halo-Halo, a 12oz cup-ucopia of bounty in the form of ube ice cream, flan, condensed milk, jellied fruits and crushed ice. Meaning mix-mix, the proof is indeed in the pudding. You mix, you eat, you sugar rush. Before doing what I was told, I isolated a spoon of the purple yam ice cream and found it again, a flavour that Starbucks may well make ubiquitous but for now is still unique.

I leave without the full story. Ingredient availability, food education or culinary politics — these are the factors at play as to why a cuisine may not transcend the masses. But I want the lovely people behind Rice and Shine to know that what felt to me as menu padding is unnecessary and, at this riverside venue, they can paddle their own canoe. Or to put it as Maya Angelou did – ‘‘You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody’’.

All words and photos by Roo Winks

Rice and Shine, Unit 7, Cargo 1, BS1 6WP

The Bristol Sauce is an AI free publication — all our work is written and edited by humans.

The news

Wilsons and Dongnae have both once again made the list of the top 100 restaurants in the country according to the National Restaurant Awards. We don’t yet know what position they’re in; the full list will be revealed at the awards in June.

After 42 years of running the business, founder and managing director Phil Haughton is stepping away from Better Food to spend more time making pottery, reading, writing, walking and supporting Heart of BS13 charity as chair. The business, which has four branches in Bristol, will now be run by Craig Hawthorn who has been closely involved with the Better Food for some time.

Admittedly it’s not Bristol news, but he’s one of us so I am including it anyway. Peter Sanchez-Iglesias, former chef-owner of Casamia, Paco Tapas and Pi Shop, has been announced as the new head chef of Gareth Ward’s restaurant Gwen in the small Welsh village of Machynlleth. In an interview with Code Hospitality, Pete shared that “the food is going to be “me”. When I describe my food, it’s “no rules cooking”. Just because I’m standing in nature, doesn’t mean I’m only going to cook from this part of the land. I love flavour. Joining the Ynyshir family, everything is about flavour; we’re obsessed by ingredients. We are looking to do almost a mini version of what they’re doing at Ynyshir, so we’ll probably do multiple courses at the front then I’ll take people back and they’ll finish off with all the sweets in the front again”. Sounds like it’ll be worth the three hour drive.

Press

The Go To Food Podcast has been in town. Dan O’Regan was interviewed for an episode in his restaurant Lapin, and Jan Ostle laid bare his incredible career in Wilson’s Bread Shop. Both episodes can be listened to on all normal listening platforms for anyone interested in an insight into the world of running restaurants.

Lapin has also been reviewed by The Telegraph’s restaurant critic William Sitwell. Sitwell, who owns his own restaurant which is a blatant conflict of interest, thought that the front of house at Lapin weren’t smiley enough and that there was too much sauce on his asparagus. He praised the wine list and his main of entrecôte with bone marrow. This review irritates me no end, partly because I do not like William Sitwell and partly because it’s full of glaring inconsistencies. He states: ‘the asparagus came in a blanket of hazelnuts next to a huge dollop of sauce gribiche. It made me wonder if the chef didn’t trust the quality of the green spears, choosing instead to smother them, almost in shame’. If the asparagus is next to the sauce, pray tell William — how is it smothered? To be honest, I am not remotely surprised that the front of house weren’t smiling, as I too would be most displeased to have Sitwell rock up on my doorstep.

Three Bristol cafes have been named among the top in the UK. Dareshack, Radical Roasters and Sweven have all been recognised in the inaugural list of the UK’s Best Coffee Shops, which itself acts as a gateway to the World’s 100 Best Coffee shops. The three Bristol cafes are now eligible to compete in Europe’s 100 Best Coffee Shops — good luck to them!

Closures

After 18 years, The Green Man pub in Kingsdown has closed. Sharing on Instagram, the management revealed that they had been asked to hand back the keys and do not know what the future holds for this beloved local boozer. The Green Man went out with a bang the weekend just gone, with many turning out to bid the pub farewell to the soundtrack of pints being poured and live music.

In further pub-based news, Gourmet Warriors have finished their residency at The Gallimaufry on Gloucester Road. Hungry pub-goers can order Pizzucci from up the road to be delivered to their table in the meanwhile as the Gallimaufry team hunt for their next pop-up. Read The Bristol Sauce review of Gourmet Warriors at The Gallimaufry.

New openings

Sonny Stores have opened a pop-up branch in Psychopomp on St Michael’s Hill, serving small plates designed to pair with the distillery’s cocktails. While it originally opened as quite a small operation, this week the kitchen is closed for renovations to make it bigger and better, to move the loos and improve the decking. Sounds like an already great thing is about to get even better.

Pyschopomp’s previous bedfellows Interlude Coffee teased the opening of its new shop on Instagram a couple of weeks ago, and it looks awfully like it may be opening at 51 Colston Street in what was previously skateboarding shop Fifty Fifty.

Toby Gritton, previous chef-owner of The Pump House and before that the Bird in Hand in Long Ashton, is opening a restaurant in Clevedon.

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The path between Bristol and Cardiff has often been a tricky one for restaurants to navigate.

Bar 44 may have established itself as a Bristolian fixture, but its neighbour The Clifton closed its doors last year despite a Bib Gourmand. A strong reputation on this side of the bridge wasn’t enough for maverick Stephen Gomes — the Welsh capital’s self-proclaimed ‘Usain Bolt of Indian food’ — to make a success of Meluha on Park Street. Sadly we’ll never know what the local reaction to his more off-kilter flourishes would have been like. Would Bristol have taken to his dishwasher chicken or lamb cheesecake? Maybe. We’ll never know.

It hasn’t been all beer and skittles in the opposite direction, either. It’s too soon to comment on recent arrivals Spitfire and Bosco, and while Pasture still packs them in on High Street and sister brand Parallel extends next door, Mugshot has recently come to a messy end, going the way of Pieminister, Burger Theory, Steak of the Art and Society Standard.

I’m expecting no such turbulence for Brother Thai.

They haven’t rushed heedless and headlong into this Stokes Croft opening. It has been a long time coming: they are no strangers to the city, with very well-received stints at street food markets since their 2015 debut. It’s hard to overstate the impact they had: the joke was that it was only the Great Wall of China and the line for Brother Thai’s sticky beef roti you could see from space. There has always been more to them, of course, as the original restaurant which opened in 2021 quickly flourished into one of those places that is always busy, and has never let up. It’s the right place, too: owner Andrew Chongsathien has always done things his way, in his own rhythm.

Although the Stokes Croft branch has been open just a few days, it feels confident and well-thought-out. There’s a welcome flash of familiarity, a sense of seamless transition — You just settle in/Like a song with no end, as Waxahatchee puts it. Don’t worry, there will be something a bit more dad-rock later.

The little nuggets of battered mushroom in the laab (£9.50) sit in a bright, spiky tumble of coriander, mint and a dressing humming with fish sauce. It’s bracing, instantly compelling, and punches way above its weight for a ‘lighter’ option.

Chicken thigh (£9.50), lightly seasoned and fried to a crisp finish, is carved finger-thick. It has had a makeover since I last had it, when it was served whole and striped with sauces, but this presentation means you get to dip and dredge as you see fit. Get to work, then, and while you’re at it, congratulate yourself for nabbing a window seat, because people-watching in Stokes Croft never disappoints.

A red chicken curry bowl (£14) is everything you expect and want: that gentle collision of salty, sweet, and spicy in a creamy, fragrant broth bobbing with good things.

Of course, coming to Brother Thai and not ordering filled roti would be odd behaviour — like visiting The Louvre, ignoring La Gioconda heading to the bathrooms because you’re curious which taps they’ve installed.

This is the house that sticky roti built, after all, and while permanent sites (and what a lovely space this is, by the way, bright, airy and welcoming) have allowed them to expand the menu, this is still their calling card. The sticky beef version (£11) above all: big, bold, unmistakable, aromatic, sticky, tender and hot, the perfect delivery method for a payload of flavours and textures which has put a smile on the face of tens of thousands. That heady waft of lemongrass and herbs, the buttery paratha, that tangy cucumber ajat, that beef, all zigzagged with sriracha and sriracha mayonnaise? Familiar, but impressive all over again. Resistance is futile. Surrender. Enjoy.

Their advice? Eat it like a taco. Fold, don’t roll — this being Stokes Croft where the Saturday afternoon air is already decidedly herbal, it’s safe to say there’s plenty of rolling going on already.

This is still the one conversation stops for. It’s immediately evocative, every bit as good as the first I had years ago, triumphantly reaching the head of that queue. It is pretty much un-improvable: I’ve been slacking on Duolingo and so don’t know the Thai for ‘If it ain’t broke...’

In the kindest of ways, Bristol, you are very welcome to Brother Thai. Make the most of them. And signing off in true Classic Rock ™️ style? ‘Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss.’

All words and photos by Jonathan Swain

Brother Thai, 104 Stokes Croft, BS1 3FH

The Bristol Sauce is an AI free publication — all our work is written and edited by humans.

From sourdough to slow fermented yeast loaves, choux pastry to viennoiserie; Bristol has a wealth of independent bakeries to satiate every baked good buyer. Some of these bakeries are in national guides, chichi magazines or have gone viral on #foodtok with queues to match. Others are low-key community hubs, where people pause, linger, and fill up their literal and metaphorical cups. Independent business has always been an important part of Bristol, shaping its character and neighbourhoods, and in this current economic climate it has never been more important to shop local if you can. Even while writing this piece, three community bakeries have closed their doors, and others have pivoted or changed their way of working. Whether you’re new to Bristol or are on the hunt for fresh inspiration — here’s an inexhaustive list of indie bakeries offering baked goods and so much more.

1. Ahh Toots, Christmas Steps

At the foot of Christmas Steps is Ahh Toots, at home in a Tudor building dating to the 1300s. From the moment you clock eyes on the window display, this place works its magic. Seasonal doughnuts, slabs of cookie pie, sweetie-studded rocky road, and a multitude of layer cakes vie for your attention. Don’t know what to choose? Try their famous tres leche or tiramisu cake. Courgette and lime is also a great shout. On Saturdays they serve a seasonal meringue pie which is well worth a weekend trip.

17 Christmas Street, BS1 5BT | Open Tuesday - Saturday | ahhtoots.com

2. Anna Cake Couture, Clifton Village

Beautifully decorated celebration cakes and a swag of flowers over the doorway may attract your attention, but it’s the macarons in a rainbow of colours that will make you stay. Build your own box with flavours like mini egg, raspberry and rose, and sweet shop sour cherry. Chunky cookies are also good here, with cake batter sprinkle or the malt mallow crunch: sure fire hits.

7A Boyce’s Avenue, BS8 4AA | Seven days a week | thisisanna.co.uk

3. The Bakehouse, Totterdown

Next door to the iconic Banana Boat in Totterdown, The Bakehouse is a family run establishment that offers a selection of baked goods, as well as store cupboard essentials. Try their tahini halva brownies (on the cake-ier end of the spectrum), or one of their quad cakes, a cube of layer cake with flavours like raspberry and vanilla, black forest or lemon and blueberry. They make pretty celebration cakes here (on request) too, topped with ganache or butter cream and scattered with herbs and petals.

118 Oxford Street, BS3 4RL | Monday - Saturday | instagram.com/bakehouse_totterdown

4. Bakesmiths, Whiteladies Road

Bakesmiths is a light and airy café that is laptop friendly, based in what used to be Henry Africa’s Hothouse - IYKYK. Fuel your work with locally-roasted coffee and a salted white chocolate matcha slice, or perhaps one of their butter buns. Sourdough loaves are also available, once baked on site and snapped up quickly by those in the know. Now, all their offerings are baked daily at their expanded sister location, Bakehouse at Cakesmiths, on St Phillips Rd (near the Bristol and Bath cycle path) — a wholesale supplier of cakes, sourdough and small batch loaves that doubles as an open plan café-bakery.

65 Whiteladies Road, BS8 2LY | Seven days a week | bakesmiths.co.uk

5. Bristanbul, Gloucester Road

Bristanbul on Gloucester Road has an eye-catching window full of party cakes and rows of fondant iced player characters, perfect for your gaming tween. Go past these to find their Turkish bakes and specialties, freshly made each day. Grab a sesame crusted simit to go with your coffee or honey-soaked baklava. My favourite is their gözleme; a traditionally made flatbread filled and folded. Spinach and feta or potato and onion are my go-to.

137 Gloucester Road, BS7 8AX | Seven days a week | bristanbul.co.uk

6. Bristol’Éclair, Whiteladies Road

Recently moved from their blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spot at the top of Whiteladies Road, Bristol L’Éclair is now diagonally opposite the Everyman Cinema. Specialising in eclairs and other choux-based confections, their regular flavours include classic vanilla crème patisserie and chocolate, lemon meringue pie, and pistachio. Alongside, there is a special of the month, which at the time of writing is white chocolate and pistachio kunafa.

91A Whiteladies Road, BS8 2NT | Wednesday - Sunday | bristoleclair

7. Bristol Loaf, Bedminster

Having recently opened their fourth site within the city, Bristol Loaf is a hyper-local chain baking daily at their Redfield and Bedminster locations. Cheddar and Marmite knots are a must for anyone who loves savoury pastries and their PBJ pain suisse is an indulgent special. Filled buns, sandwiches and pizza are also available, the offerings changing on a regular basis. Home also to sibling company, Native Vine, you can pick up a bottle of natural wine to take home with your loaf too.

96 Bedminster Parade, BS3 4HL | Seven days a week | bristolloaf.co.uk

8. Cake Tin, St Michael’s Hill

Chunky loaded cookies with soft gooey centres are the speciality at Cake Tin on St Michael’s Hill. Quality ingredients, generously packed into each bite, make for a riot of textures and crunch. Regular flavours include fruity oatmeal; almond cherry; Biscoff; chocolate chip walnut and triple chocolate chip. Specials change frequently, often with a seasonal element, and you can even top your cookie with a helping of soft serve.

151 St Michael's Hill, BS2 8DB | Wednesday - Saturday | caketin.co.uk

9. Catley’s, Clifton Village

Close to Boyce’s Avenue and the busy arcade, the coral pink shopfront of Catley’s often has a running club milling about outside, stopping to refuel post-exercise. This is the place to indulge in S’mores Danishes, Biscoff babkas, chocolate custard doughnuts and cinnamon rolls. When it’s rhubarb season, you must grab a slice of rhubarb meringue pie with mountainous peak of toasted meringue. Catley’s also has a new headquarters and second site, in St Annes, on Wootton Road.

14 King's Road, BS8 4AB | Friday - Sunday | instagram.com/catleys_

10. Dude Cake, various locations

For milk cake fans, Dude Cake makes the best in Bristol. Pistachio and rose, their original, is the lightest sponge, soaked in fragrant, spiced malai. For pure indulgence, try their Matilda Kunafe: a Bruce Bogtrotter style chocolate fudge cake, layered with kunafe, pistachio crema and a puddle of milk chocolate ganache. They also make an excellent Magnolia Bakery style banana pudding and chocolate crunch cake with homemade feuilletine. Order via Instagram @dudecake_, it really is worth the effort.

instagram.com/dudecake_

11. Everest Bread, Fishponds

Everest Bread is a micro-bakery based in Fishponds specialising in sourdough loaves and vegan bakes. Pre-order online Monday to Wednesday for local delivery or pick up on Friday. You can also buy goodies from Artichoke Wholefoods, The Hatch, and Wild Oats. Try one of their seasonal sweet buns such as yuzu curd, coconut and blackberry or plum custard and crumble. Their miso and black sesame cookies are also great, as are their slices of pizza al taglio with homemade almond ricotta.

Orders placed Monday - Wednesday for Friday collection | instagram.com/everest_bread

12. Farro, St Paul’s

Heritage grains, milled on site, go into the breads and pastries at Farro Bakery. Grab an emmer loaf or a monthly special, such as marbled rye or tourte de siegle to have with some cultured butter. Viennoiserie is also a strong point: if you love savoury things, try their cigar shaped herb and cream cheese-filled croissants. For a sweet tooth, get a West Country Queen, Farro’s take on a kouign amann, filled with a smooth, tart, apple butter.

1 Brunswick Square, BS2 8PE | Tuesday - Sunday | farro.co.uk

13. Forest Bakery, The Dings

Specialising in plant-based cakes and pastries, plus sourdough loaves, Forest Bakery sits within the railway arches close to Temple Quarter. Their iced pecan Forest bun is a signature, but other offerings change regularly. Try and catch their chocolate-dipped pistachio croissants or black tahini and miso caramel swirls. Look out also for their plant-based Friday night pizzas, with locally-brewed pints from nearby Unwins and Little Martha.

Arch 26 Oxford Street, BS2 0QT | Tuesday - Saturday | theforestbakery.co.uk

14. 404 Bakes, various locations

Having recently closed their café doors to concentrate on wholesale work, chances are, if you’ve enjoyed a vegan bake in your favourite Bristol café, it was 404 Bakes. Cherry Biscoff brownies and almond croissant blondies are popular, but it’s their slices of layer cake you must seek out. Flavours like spiced banana, red currant jam and espresso butter cream or chamomile, lavender, lemon curd and lemon sherbet are a delight.

404bakes.com

15. Guild of Dough, Ashley Down Road

Supplying a number of Bristol’s cafes and restaurants with their baguettes and loaves, Guild of Dough now have their own café-bakery where you can pop in and buy their confections. Slices of lemon drizzle with mascarpone and gooseberry compote are a joy and sticky blueberry, lemon and white chocolate buns standout. If it’s on, their S’mores brownie alongside a cup of coffee is definitely a good idea.

105 Ashley Down Road, BS7 9JT | Seven days a week | guildofdough.co.uk

All words and photos by Ishita DasGupta

The Bristol Sauce is an AI free publication — all our work is written and edited by humans.

With the scripture of seasonality, sustainability, root-to-fruit, nipple-to-scrotum worshipped as loudly as it ever has been, especially in Bristol — a city that couldn’t be any more left wing if it had Ryan Giggs’ curly mop flying down the flank on his way to shag his brother’s wife — a certain Stokes Croft veteran seems to have been left out of the conversation. Poco was once the darling of a nascent green scene, both locally and nationally, from its dainty corner site overlooking the immortal Turbo Island. Yet, when it was announced in January 2024 that it was to close later that year, with a vague sense of inevitability I had almost forgotten it was even there, and I probably wasn’t the only one.

Like the gorilla-chested Manchester United midfield star of the 90s, the UK’s food scene can be somewhat incestuous. From Poco to (recently closed) Silo, Mallow to Fallow, you can’t throw a regeneratively-farmed artichoke without hitting one of these little vegetable-forward spots. If Poco was a trendsetter — and it was definitely among the early adopters and even awarded best ethical restaurant by the Observer in 2013— then that trend is now well and truly sat; plonked firmly onto its favourite sofa with no intention of budging any time soon.

So when Poco announced a reprieve under new owners three months later, it seemed to be met with a little murmur of enthusiasm but mostly indifference. The overriding recollection from my handful of previous visits was one of unfulfilled potential; inviting menu, cosy spot, generally good cocktails, inconsistent execution of the dishes. A plate of pork belly, beautifully wobbly and crisp in all the right places, tarnished by drying slivers of curried kid goat that followed after.

Poco was probably two-thirds full upon arrival mid-evening on a Thursday, suggesting there’s still some legs in dishing up trotters. Some appetite for stomach. Well, maybe not quite stomach; probably heart at a push. If you want the real good stuff you might need to head to Tasty to Go by Bristol Beacon. Or Shah’s in Easton for a brain curry. Other cultures still seem more capable of appreciating the unique tastes and textures of the forgotten bits, and without as much of the holier-than-thou fanfare.

Kicking off, as any sane restaurant-goer does, with bread and butter, we ordered a couple of dips to mitigate the risk of poor butter to bread ratios. As it turns out, the butter didn’t arrive at all. We would have asked for some but getting the attention of the front of house team seemed to be as difficult as running with sceptres, coincidentally exactly what I was trying to order when the same issue resurfaced after we’d finished our first round without feeling suitably quenched. In a similar vein, menus were taken away after we’d ordered but a couple of snacks, turning the meal into some sort of impromptu memory exam.

The generously proportioned hunks of sourdough, properly pockmarked with bubbles, had an air of being exposed to…air; that slight stiffness to the edges that isn’t exactly staleness but on its way there, suggesting they may have been scythed from the loaf at some point earlier that evening.

Smoked cod’s roe taramasalata had a touch of the supermarket to it, though more emollient than Tesco’s version and without the alarmingly pink, almost nuclear, glow of the worst examples. A pool of olive oil did little to boost the rather muted flavour, though maybe some people are still a bit scared of the idea of fishy egg sacs.

Merriam-Webster’s 2025 Word of the Year was meant in reference to the nonsense AI-generated videos currently mushrooming all over TikTok, befuddling grandparents and idiots up and down the country into believing there is an epidemic of babies jumping out of hospital windows. ‘Slop’ could equally have applied to the taramasalata’s fungal cousin. That’s not to say it didn’t taste good — the parfait was more than edible; cool, dank, oily — but, like TikTok, was infinitely more enjoyable with your eyes closed. Its unsettling hue was the same greyish pink as the mould that grows between tiles in damp bathrooms.

‘Devon Cheese Croquette, Venison Bacon Chilli Jam’. Any combination of those seven words I can come up with makes a delicious-sounding bite, and fortunately Poco came up trumps here. In a nod to their eco-credentials, the restaurant virtually always has venison on the menu, and as well as being pulverised into the sort of condiment that would brighten up any sandwich and blobbed on top of a pair of oozing orbs with the gentle funk of blue cheese, it was served as haunch with quince, hen of the woods and parsnip. I recall Poco once serving wild rabbit confit as a means of attempting to curb a snowballing wild population and the attendant ecological consequences. Now it seems to be mainly deer on the menu instead. Good job since these tree-munching, woodland-destroying ungulates are currently breeding like, well, rabbits.

A dish of pork jowl glazed in sherry and served with pommes anna was a clear front-runner on the menu, but had unfortunately been 86ed. Our chosen replacement was a nicely-cooked little red mullet fillet, skin glinting and glimmering, with buttery butter beans draped in wilted ramson leaves and studded with smoked eel and preserved lemon. Nice. A couple of incongruously large and crunchy radicchio leaves were just too bitter to play nicely with the rest of the participants, like a sadomasochist at a teddy bear’s picnic. The soft lines and odd blobs somewhat recalled a Rorschach inkblot, although it’s probably not wise to infer my psychological state.

Leeks and mushrooms, fittingly two dishes from the vegetable arsenal (no, not that fan caught eating broccoli at the Emirates) were largely successful, though still with the odd miscalculation. The former arrived as charred, stumpy, slightly stringy lengths blobbed with harissa, salsa verde and some sort of beige, bubbly foam in a let’s-throw-all-the-condiments-at-it-and-see-what-sticks approach that was more pleasing than it sounds.

A bundle of deep-fried enoki had their inherent umami nature boosted by both caramelised yeast — surely ready to take the reins from miso — mayonnaise and a rubble of pumpkin seed XO, their slight rubberiness and scattering of seaweed giving ‘vegan takoyaki’ vibes, but the batter had absorbed too much oil. Close, but no devil’s cigar (it’s a type of mushroom, look it up).

A neat summary of the meal, perhaps, although a surge of terminal lucidity, came in the form of a light ‘dark’ chocolate ganache with ice cream and an almost-jam of sweetened confit Kalamata olives, like salted caramel dialled up to eleven; fruity, sweet, pulpy and moreishly savoury. Olive oil and chocolate is an established pairing these days, but using the flesh is certainly more novel, although I recall The Olive Shed doing just that with a near-identical and similarly successful dessert in 2021.

When we have the likes of green-starred Wilson’s and Root making vegetables the hero in ever-more innovative, exciting and just downright delicious ways, Poco, for all its undeniable history, seems a little old hat by comparison. Because I am very cool and more than a little autistic, I make notes on (and rate out of ten, obviously) every plate of food I eat in a restaurant, and also overall thoughts on the meal. When I look back at the notes from my last Poco meal in October 2021 — which probably says all you really need to know without the neurodivergence — I wrote ‘I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.’ Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

All words and photos by PXandTarts

Poco Tapas, 45 Jamaica St, BS2 8JP

The Bristol Sauce is an AI free publication — all our work is written and edited by humans.

Picture the scene: you’re sat outside RAGÙ sipping a locally-made wine, toasting another productive week of being a quintessential Bristolian (pulling down statues/flying hot air balloons/petitioning for new cycle lanes/making stop-motion animations/extolling the virtues of moving to Easton - delete as appropriate) as the sun sets in the sky. The last rays reflect off your sunglasses and warm your shoulders, kissing them farewell until tomorrow. It’s been a lovely, warm, boozy evening; you finished work at five, heading straight for the last remaining table outside Junction where you started with a pint, and you actually think you may have caught the sun a bit too much as one pint turned into three. You notice your cheekbones are looking more than a little flushed as you wash your hands in the Wapping Wharf toilets after popping into Pigsty to double check the entry code. Oh well. One should never take an evening in the British sun for granted…

Stop right there. Have you noticed anything slightly off about the above paragraph?

You see, you can never achieve such an evening of dreams, because Bristol’s harbourside is wrong, all wrong. It is completely the wrong way round. The setting sun casts the entirety of Wapping Wharf and all its restaurants and terraces in an enormous, cold, looming shadow from the neighbouring M shed and flats from about 6pm. You cannot enjoy the sunset from any of those terraces, you can’t grab a Squeezed dinner and sit by the water in the last gasps of the day’s fading warmth unless you’re willing to delay your prandial gratification to walk all the way around to the Arnolfini, where you will have to dodge the boozers to enjoy your rapidly cooling burger and fries. The only place you can enjoy the sun is the Olive Shed — but good luck getting a table when the weather is nice.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the water sits the aquarium. A building with no windows which closes at 5pm. There’s also We The Curious, which does have windows — albeit tinted ones — but nobody goes for that, and anyway, they’ve also vacated the place by sunset. Then there’s the Lloyds building; an office block hogging all of our precious rays. Don’t get me started on Za Za Bazaar. I’d rather try to catch myself a fish from the murky harbourside waters than force myself to swallow a plate of their claggy noodles and three day old chicken tikka masala.

So you see, it’s all wrong. They don’t need the sun over that side. Those of us, punters and restaurateurs alike, hoping for a prime al fresco Wapping Wharf restaurant experience this summer really do.

To me there are three obvious solutions to this problem. Number one — we simply pick up the shipping containers and dump them on the other side, where they really belong. This is the best thing that could be done for the food lovers of Bristol. Shipping containers are literally designed to be picked up and moved. We must take advantage of this. We were planning on moving them anyway, weren’t we? This is a far more logical set up. We’d have to demolish both the Lloyds’ buildings, but that’s no great loss. The Lloyds people can move into Wapping Wharf (or, indeed, anywhere else) and us restaurant goers can enjoy the setting sun over the water alongside our umami bomb from freshly-relocated Bertha’s, the best pizza in Bristol now within stumbling distance of Watershed.

Alternatively, we use the often vacant space in the Lloyds Amphitheatre to install a giant, angled mirror. I am talking the Jodrell Bank of mirrors. There’s a town in the mountains of Norway called Rjukan that doesn’t get any sun from September to March where they have done exactly this, apparently with great success. I expect our mirror would become something of a tourist attraction in itself. It would be like the new planetarium, everyone would come to take selfies in it. A boon for the local economy on both sides of the harbour. Wapping Wharf would be sunny all evening and Bristol once again known for being a pioneering, problem-solving city. This would have been the perfect job for Brunel, but I guess these days we’ll have to enlist the guy who built that massive water slide down Park Street.

Or, we simply stack Wapping Wharf’s shipping containers on top of each other like a giant, restaurant-y game of Jenga so that they tower far above the neighbouring buildings and thus we can enjoy the sun late into the evening. Simples.

I suggest we set to it immediately. Judging by how long it takes Bristol to complete any project of scale, by my calculations if we start now, we might just about be ready to enjoy a summer of sun by 2035….

All words and photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour

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The Bristol Sauce is an AI free publication — all our work is written and edited by humans.

Castle Combe has apparently been voted prettiest village in England multiple times. By who, or exactly how many times, I can’t be bothered to find out. But the point remains — if you took a group of American tourists to this little Cotswolds village with its honeypot stone houses, imposing market cross and overflowing abundance of all-round, monarchy-loving, poppy-wearing, winning-the-World-Cup-Once-and-never-shutting-up-about-it British quaintness, they’d refuse to return to gaudy Bath and its ostentatious, obvious baths. A more romantic location could hardly be imagined for a pair of (food) lovers fleeing the oversaturated, soapy sentimental Valentine’s nonsense of Big City Bristol.

I had booked a table for two in the murky depths of 7.30pm. Arriving ten minutes late only compounded our missed opportunity to explore the setting for both War Horse, which I haven’t seen, and the superb thriller-cum-black comedy Slow Horses.

Dinner was at The Castle Inn, which dates to the 12th Century, making it several hundred years older than Machu Picchu and only slightly younger than Donald Trump. And a much better bet for finding half-decent food than either, with a menu that largely plays it safe — soup, fish and chips, steak — but with the odd flourish of cherry harissa or tom yum broth to frighten said slow horses.

Returning from an unplanned tour of the oak-beamed, stone-walled labyrinth on a hunt for the bathroom, I weaved through a group of gathered tweens, evidently bored by the whole fraudulent romance of their respective parents, but still knowing enough to dole out pearls of wisdom to each other. “You can kiss when you’re 18” and “Valentine’s isn’t as good as Pancake Day anyway” (so true) still ringing in my ears, I glanced bashfully across the table at my one true love: bread. A domed brioche had appeared in my absence. Its matt brown surface, cleaved into three mounds, was surprisingly un-shiny, but the crumb was light and buttery, if a touch dry. It came with what was described as “whipped yeast butter”. Ideally the only time I want yeast mentioned over Valentine’s dinner.

I can’t be the only panophile in the south west, as I observed, with a mixture of ridicule and desire, Valentine’s offerings plastered with the slogans “You’re the loaf of my life” and “We’re butter together”. I think if I’d dared present one of those cringe-cards to Meg I’d be walking around with a baguette shoved where the sun don’t shine until a chance at birthday redemption.

Crispy artichoke presumably wasn’t shoehorned onto the menu for its “hearts” in the same way as oysters or, less subtly, aubergine, can be this time of year and anyway, as Cupid famously said, fritta è buona anche una suola di scarpa. The grassy, slightly nutty hearts were far more fun than a pile of salami shaped into a rose.

As I bisected a haggis Scotch egg — the best way to make an egg truly Scotch apart from drowning it in whisky or dressing it up in tartan — I watched the gloriously sunny yolk start to ooze over the coarse, peppery meat and thought “maybe I should review this place”. It doesn’t get much more romantic than that. It truly was an egg worthy of being paraded around the room on a silver salver to the whiny din of bagpipes, surely the most amorous of all musical instruments. If ever a poem was going to be written to address a Scotch egg, it would be this one, lying there on a smulch of pulpy homemade brown sauce, staring at you like the disapproving eyes of prosaically-named furby-ish owl Duo when you’ve forgotten to practice your Swedish.

Pig parts were deployed again in the form of tenderly smoked cheek on tomato and ale ragu, like gravy’s fruitier cousin. The cheek pulled apart into pleasingly fatty strands which clung to the fork, but a surfeit of pickles brought an unwelcome acidity to what should have been a coddling dish of wobbly meat in a sticky, savoury embrace.

Like yeast, any mention of crabs is a potential date-killer, and the tempura’d soft sheller on top of a thinly-sliced platform of pork rib eye would have had me walking out on mine had I not needed a lift home. Whoever was in charge of the fryer had presumably abandoned post and rushed to the broom cupboard for a quickie, as this spread eagled Sebastian was soggy and oozing juice, and not in a good way. The meat underneath was soft and mild, although I prefer mine a bit pinker and a bit fattier. Napa cabbage kimchi and tom yum broth both over promised and under delivered (see also: beef dripping chips) but I’m the last person who should be critical over such shortcomings.

After a flying start, our meal had hit a couple of hurdles. Still, always ones to flog a dead donkey, we soldiered on. Weighing up salted caramel fondant or an intriguing s’mores-type affair with miso marshmallow, malt biscuit and cereal ice cream, I reminisced about the first-rate salted caramel tart I had enjoyed the only other time I’d come to The Castle Inn, with my ex-wife. Which, as you can imagine, went down an absolute treat with my next wife. Unable to come to a decision, we reverted to tossing. Premature, you might think. But the coin called it: rhubarb and custard tart.

Many an average meal has been saved by an excellent dessert, like a last minute thirty yard screamer when you’ve been under the cosh for nine minutes. Sadly this was more like when Spurs are 2-1 down with ten minutes to go; you’re better off cutting your losses and missing the traffic.

Despite looking the part initially, lipstick pink stalks arranged geometrically over a custard the colour of aged parmesan, it soon became clear the tart was all fur coat and no knickers. Or, all undercooked pastry and grainy filling, and no buttery base with velvet custard. The rhubarb did its job properly — winningly, wincingly tart, just tamed by a little sugar and barely denatured by heat. The pastry, though, was as pale and depressing as a Reform Christmas party, as flabby as their leader, and almost as thick, having the same depth as the custard. Ratios all off.

That’s the last time I, a true tart lover, bona fide pastry proselytiser, reject a caramel tart; queen of puddings. Not actual Queen of Puddings, barely more than a glorified hot trifle which, owing to a lack of pastry, can barely be considered more than a princess among genuine pudding aficionados. All I wanted was a fleeting slice of the season wrapped up in the fragile embrace of butter, sugar and flour. What I got was a rhubarb-flavoured doorstop. It’s the hope that kills you. Or, as the shoddy, grimy yet somehow unimpeachably, sardonically prudent Jackson Lamb would say whilst slipping out a fart “it’s not the hope that kills you. It’s knowing it’s the hope that kills you ... that kills you”.

All words by PXandTarts, all photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour

Castle Inn, West St, Castle Combe, SN14 7HN

The Bristol Sauce is an AI free publication — all our work is written and edited by humans.

A one-off: Poco Tapas X Henry Wadsworth

I had planned to recommend Caper and Cure’s collaboration with WANGS as our one-off in April, but it has sold out, unsurprisingly. However, this seems like an opportune moment to inform you that the team at WANGS are now proudly in possession of an authentic Cantonese charcoal roasting oven, shipped over recently from China, and are starting to release dates for their initial barbecue sessions — sign up to their mailing list to be the first to know.

But Poco Tapas teaming up with Henry Wadsworth is a more than worthy alternative, especially since Poco’s recently joined head chef Dorin Jeler was previously at

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Ibrahim describes the trucks that trundle down Stapleton Road in the still hazy morning hours, holding up traffic with the peaceably languid air of a Pope visit. Carcass after carcass, these men dressed in red dole out their wares wholesale, to the numerous restaurants studding the banks of this culinary tributary; the central stitch in the fabric of suburban East Bristol’s food scene.

For as long as I’ve lived in Bristol, this road has been the main conduit by which I traverse it, or at the very least my jumping off point. So, the story that this buoyant restauranteur weaves for us chimes in harmonious resonance with my own vivid recollections of the same. On more than one occasion, stood before my boss, hat in hand, I blamed my lateness squarely on the butcher’s lorries and their trademark languorousness. Happy memories. And, to be perfectly clear, I would have it no other way.

To say that this area moves to its own rhythm would be an understatement. But it’s precisely this kind of chaotic un-preciseness that has kept me in the neighbourhood for so long. With each passing year, a community operates in continual defiance of expectation and structural adversity and I witness this wonder grow before me.

One of the newest additions to Stapleton Road’s cornucopia is Afghan Restaurant. True to its (prosaic) name, it boasts a menu of the quintessential Afghan delicacies you’d expect and some of my favourite things to eat, bar none. My housemate, similarly giddy at the prospect of feasting on Qābilī palaw and mantu, is a long-time frequenter of London’s much-celebrated Ariana II and is an all-round Afghan food zealot.

As we enter, the space is gleaming white and greetings are warm. Ibrahim commands the front of house with an effortless calm, I get the feeling he is at home here. And no wonder, for his father is the chef, making up the other half of this decidedly family affair. We share the dining room with two other large families, babies in high chairs having their food cut up for them by attendant parents.

The chapli kebab (£15) arrives first, two sauces, salad and a stack of flatbreads in tow. Ground lamb, spiced heavily with coriander seed and onion is then pressed flat on the grill. Brought to a toothsome crisp while still managing to melt in the mouth, this Pashtun variant of the skewered kebab’s name comes from the word for ‘sandal’; we’re informed gleefully. Thankfully, the obvious dimensions of it are where the similarities begin and end.

Sorry everyone, but if dumplings are to ever enter the chat, it will take me a solid five to realise that I’ve been the only one talking, so fervent is my adoration of them. Mantu are no exception. These (£9) come filled with lamb, typically drenched in a godly amount of garlic yoghurt, a lentil and tomato sauce, garnished with chickpeas and dried mint. I am a self-professed easy win here but even with the evident layers of finery, I must regretfully say that I am not completely bowled over by this particular iteration. These do the job but are not as flavoursome or juicy as I would expect.

The chicken achari (£9.50) is a crowd favourite. Cooked down in a spice paste, meant to mimic the flavour profile of traditional south Asian pickles with fennel seed, mustard, fenugreek, and nigella being at the fore. This dish is warm, comforting, and gone in minutes.

The aforementioned and much hyped Qābilī palaw (£15) is presented with a visual splendour that is undeniable. Slow-cooked lamb shank sat atop and lending its juices to a mountain of sweet rice, jewelled with carrots and raisins. Stoics say that comparison is the thief of joy and, being a food writer I’d be remiss if I didn’t state that this is a large part of the job, sadly. But it is true that I have eaten many forms of Qābilī palaw in my life and, although this stands above average, it certainly doesn’t take the top spot. Tender enough and suitably scorched, the lamb glistens with a prerequisite sheen of collagen and fat but when I think of comparable dishes at a similar price point in the Bristol area that shall remain nameless, consider my joy stolen.

The vegetable dishes however, come through shining. Loobia (£7) and bamia (£7), red kidney beans and okra, respectively, are perfectly balanced and sate even the most curmudgeonly of us diners. The split pea dal (£7) is all well tempered spice and rounds the meal off nicely. These three dishes are promptly inhaled.

A divisive palate cleanser comes in the form of the Afghan lassi (£2). Not as sour as some yoghurt based drinks such as ayran, which can be found in many of the west Asian grocers local to the area, the lassi is primarily Greek-style yoghurt, blitzed to high heaven with milk, ice, mint and salt. I have a deep affection for yoghurt drinks in all their forms and believe that, in the context of a hearty meal, nothing goes down better than the salted variety. Not all agree. Oh well.

Ibrahim and his father do much to inspire a convivial and warm atmosphere here at Afghan Restaurant and I will certainly be returning for a second helping at some point in the future. I can only put the few short-comings down to a set number of teething problems. In the meantime, I personally hope they can persevere and that the surrounding community can see what a jewel in the rough they have on their very doorstep.

All words and photos by Jason Jay Pridham

Afghan Restaurant, 390 Stapleton Rd, Easton, BS5 6NQ

The Bristol Sauce is an AI free publication — all our work is written and edited by humans.

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1. The March digest is here and is full of local insights, breaking news and hot gossip. If you want to read all of it, you’ll need to be a paying Saucer, which brings us onto…

2. In two days time, the cost of a Bristol Sauce paid subscription will be increasing — but only for new subscribers. If you want to lock in our lowest cost forever, this is your last reminder!

Here’s hoping April brings good things and sunshine. Thanks for reading! Meg X

The news

First up — some of Bristol’s best burgers are on the move. Fat Dads have once again moved further down Cheltenham Road and can now be found at The Full Moon in Stokes Croft. I do admire Paul’s determination to move no further than a few hundred meters at a time, leaving nothing more than a trail of breadcrumbs and burger grease, like a Bristolian Hansel.

Danny’s Burgers, currently based at Fierce and Noble in St Werburghs, may also be on the move — the group are investigating a second, bricks-and-mortar site in Brislington. More as we have it!

Press

We might as well rename this section the Dongnae edit. The Chandos Road favourite was reviewed in The Observer at the beginning of the month by Rebecca Nicholson, who loved it. Naturally. Here’s a quote: “Like a plain white T-shirt on a supermodel, everything about Dongnae simply shrugs: yeah, I know.” In addition to this rave, Dongnae has been praised by The Guardian, Financial Times, The Telegraph and, perhaps most importantly of all, The Bristol Sauce, which surely just leaves Giles Coren or Tom Parker-Bowles to come. Well done to the team for once again earning Bristol some national attention!

The Good Food Guide have released their list of the top 50 bakeries in the country, and very kindly put it behind a paywall. Fortunately the good folk at the Evening Standard have listed all fifty here for anyone interested. Three Bristol bakeries made the list: Farro, Hilda and Hart’s — huge congratulations to them, and here’s hoping for a couple more additions next year.

Closures

It’s all change on Stokes Croft: both pan-Asian street-food joint Tuk Tuck and The Spaghetti Incident (Italian, in case you didn’t guess) have announced closures only a week apart. Though it seems a proper goodbye for The Spaghetti Incident, you will still be able to order Tuk Tuck goodies via Deliveroo from their sister restaurant Pocha on Whiteladies Road.

Interlude Coffee have left their original St Michael’s Hill site with the promise of opening new premises, but a location has yet to be announced. We — and many others — hope they’re back soon and bring their Picky Bits with them.

According to Companies House, Hyde & Co — the group behind several Bristol restaurants and bars — have gone into liquidation. The group manage Bambalan, The Ox, Seven Lucky Gods, Hyde & Co and The Milk Thistle, all of which seem to still be open as normal, suggesting perhaps the businesses have been transferred to another company.

I’m rarely pleased to see a hospitality business close, but I was quite happy to see the back of the two Bristol Brewdog bars following the sale of the company at the start of March. However, the Millennium Promenade branch will apparently be reopening and is looking for staff. I wonder if James Watt will try to weasel his way back in.

Leading us nicely from closing into openings is Flour House, who have moved from Park Row to North Street. With the opening of their new North Street site in what was previously home to Kitchen by Kask, the Park Row operation is now closed.

New openings

After a tortuous wait, purveyors of the finest loaded roti in all the land Brother Thai are finally opening their Bristol branch in the Carriageworks on Stokes Croft on Thursday, 9 April. This will be the group’s second branch — the original site is in Cardiff — though you may remember them from pre-Covid Harbourside Market appearances. Read The Bristol Sauce review of the Cardiff branch.

Following the dissolution of East Bristol Bakery late last year, the now vacant site on St Mark’s Road is set to reopen as Staple Bakery on Saturday, 4 April. Staple Bakery promises pastries, drinks and bread with sourdough made from British milled organic flour. Staple Bakery is being opened by the team behind well-established Chai Guy on the same road.

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Why are we putting the price up? I’m keen that The Bristol Sauce remains utterly transparent, so here is my reasoning. In short, as we pay for everything when reviewing restaurants, the costs to our reviewers are going up because the cost of eating out continues to rise. Therefore I must pay our reviewers more. I have also considered for a while now that The Bristol Sauce is breaking even but in reality, it is not. I have not been accounting for my time — time to write, to edit, to research and to commission pieces. I hope that as the Sauce continues to grow, and hopefully with this small change in pricing, that some of my costs will also be covered. I want to be able to continue running The Bristol Sauce for a long time, and to keep growing our readership and our coverage. But to do that, it must be sustainable. Thus, there will be an annual increase in pricing every April to tide with inflation and other economic factors.

A paying subscription gives you access to all of our new content and our entire back catalogue, including our full monthly news debrief (coming on Monday) and a curated guide each month with suggestions of where to eat. Most of our content remains free to access for now, but this in turn is made possible by the people that chose to support us with a small contribution.

Finally, an important note - the cost is only going up for new subscribers. That is to say that if you become a paying subscriber now, you will lock in The Bristol Sauce’s lowest ever price — forever.

Thank you so much for reading. Meg X

“Hot dog, jumping frog / Albuquerque”

Interestingly, Albuquerque is notable for being the hot air ballooning capital of the world. In your face, Bristol (I don’t mean that, you know I love you).

It was the second time I missed the forgettably elegant signage to Castle Farm on the left that I saw the warning sign of frogs crossing. Which led to me to wonder — what sort of volume of frogs are were dealing with? Is it merely rural due diligence to an unusually high number of our amphibian friends amongst the populace, is it a yearly exodus or perhaps a grim portent of a great frog crossing tragedy of yesteryear when whole colonies perished on the highway?

Rumour has it when the moon is low you can still make out a symphony of anguished chirps and croaks dancing upon the Somerset wind.

As we blunderbussed into the bucolic beauty of the Midford Valley, Tom Parker Bowles’ gusty exhortation was ringing in my ears: “Curry? At a farm? It’s barnstorming”. He loved it, obviously. And I was indeed, at a farm.

The entrance was mid-noughties speakeasy bar-level discreet, and only the politely busy car park and insistent messages from our lunch friends suggested what lay beyond the chic, blue barn door.

It brought to mind a little Riverford’s Field Kitchen, but when our very friendly and painfully young waiters brought over some menus it became clear the food offering is a little less evangelical than the Totnes organic juggernaut. Incidentally, I recently spent some time at the Bull in Totnes and was genuinely knocked sideways by their passionate approach to sourcing, sustainability and organic produce but, idiotically, I hadn’t known it was an outpost of the multi-millionaire Riverford ownership. I suppose morals are a little less impressive when you remove any financial peril. Banging spot nonetheless.

However, here in Midford we are lunching on ‘curry Friday’ which seems to be some manner of cultural movement in these here parts. This means that the fun rolls all day— so we were able to order a roti with curry sauce (£4) for lunch and a sweet version for afters if we wanted to double trouble.

The single was fine. It came with what was a essentially a chip shop curry sauce that, whilst being one of my absolute favourites of the low art, trash sleaze sauces, was aggressively salty and two dimensional in all the wrong places. A flatbread came with goat’s cheese, honey and nuts (£7) and, although being as pale as a night out with Thomas Straker, was pretty tasty — if pallid and a little garden centre-y. Also the orgy of micro-herbs sets off my spidey senses quite strongly, suggesting energy and money perhaps not being put in the best of places.

It should be noted that the alcohol free (I know, what have I become/we used to be proper country etc etc) Brew Below pale ale (£5.50) was excellent. Crisp and quenching like ice on a bonnet. Whilst to be applauded, good shopping will only get you halfway there without a bit of help.

Spiced parsnip fritters with lemon and aioli (£8) were serviceable in that way that something deep fried served with something runnier than the deep fried thing is enjoyable. Spicing was negligible and the seasoning made me fear the long shadow of Covid again.

The ‘salad’ option was roasted winter roots, feta and pearl barley (£7). Nothing here to scare the high-fibre horses but the barley tasted a little stale or overly vinegared and the whole shebang was fridge cold, relying on the scant feta for a lot of the heavy lifting.

No such issues with the milk bun with grilled lamb sausage, feta, mint and harissa (£14). There was (and I do not say this lightly) a lot of feta involved. The milk bun was decent but the sausage lacked the merguezy hit I craved. The harissa was either muted or forgotten and I think torn mint leaves might get a little less stuck in the teeth than the whole ones. It had potential but was too polite. A hot mess that was fridge cold and didn’t want to play.

The owners who decide what goes on the plates are I think of a mixture of Scandi/ Indian background so the menu embraces these two rich cuisines, meaning you can get a dhal and an open Swedish skagen sandwich sharing the same table. I suspect the curry nights may indeed be fantastic, and I have heard the Sunday roasts are worth negating frog crossings for.

No such travels with our desserts. There is a tea shop overlooking the harbour in Brixham that has a display model cream tea in the window that has been immune to the march of change for as long as I have memory. It features chipped scones, mauve aged jam, both dead flies and interchangeable fruit scones and a sort of yellowing, thick-skinned cream that had been piped many a year ago.

It wasn’t quite like that, but I think it was on this day that I took on a new understanding of what’s meant by food being called ‘fridgey’ . Both puddings came with the same over whipped, taut Chantilly cream that looked almost geological in its granite-like firmness.

Chocolate torte (£6) was vast, dense and agricultural. If I was to give it a Sherlock eye then it may have been made a couple of moons ago and not with top-shelf chocolate. A generous serve nonetheless.

Cinnamon bun cake (£6) was a lot better with a decent spicey hit but came with even more of the same problematic cream and had a compote thrown into the middle which made the dark blood red leach unpleasingly out of the cream. It brought to mind that toffs’ nickname for rice pudding and jam; ‘nosebleed pudding’. It was also strewn with a micro-herb (amaranth perchance) which of course brought nothing to this farmhouse table, so I wondered if its cost may have been better redistributed to bumping up the quality of that chocolate.

At such a point in human history where total global annihilation now seems to be racing towards us, it would be quite the balm to find oneself nestled in the cocoon of Castle Farm waiting for the tyrants, ghouls and fools to decide who gets to drop the bomb first. Over-whipped cream or otherwise, it feels like somewhere that wants to feed and nourish you whilst the Armageddon blows over.

All words by Seldon Curry, photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour

Castle Farm, Midford Rd, Bath BA2 7PU

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