Breakfast is a contentious issue on which everyone has an opinion. Full English, cereal, croissant or just a black coffee? Beans or no beans? Black pudding? How toasted should the toast be? It gets even more complicated when you start throwing oysters into the mix — but I have to agree with Jodie that Bank’s breakfast menu is easily one of the most interesting in the city. I rarely eat before midday, but this would turn even my head… If you’re a breakfast fan and this has piqued your interest — please consider supporting our work by becoming a paying Saucer.
Breakfast has traditionally been allowed a certain amount of mediocrity. We will spend £60 at 7pm without thinking twice, but baulk at paying £25 before lunch. We’ll queue for viral, limited-seating spots after dark, then grab a Pret porridge pot on the way to work. Bank seems to be challenging that mentality, at least on a Saturday morning.
My partner, Matt, recently texted me a link to their relaunched breakfast menu, declaring it “the best breakfast menu I’ve seen in Bristol.”
We booked for 9am on the very first Saturday, and what impressed me most wasn’t just the quality, but the ambition. Oysters before 10am? A steak and eggs section? A side of roast bone marrow? A jalapeño aquavit Bloody Mary? This isn’t another brunch menu of smashed avo and shakshuka.
It wasn’t flawless. The grilled scallop and smoked bacon ‘Billingsgate’ roll (£16) was the dish I’d been most excited about. Thick-cut pork belly replaced the crisp back bacon that makes the London classic so satisfying, and I found it dry and a little chewy. I did add black pudding, which probably didn’t help matters, but I still found myself missing the simplicity of the Terry’s Café original.
Thankfully the oysters with Irish whiskey and green apple mignonette (3 for £12) more than made up for it, the hash browns did heroic work on a hangover, and the bloody Mary (£12) was everything I’d hoped for. We’d been eyeing the clock waiting for 10am, when licensing allowed us to order cocktails, and our server appeared almost immediately, remembering we’d been waiting. When she asked, we requested ‘spicy’ and it blew us away.
I returned a couple of weeks later. By no means because I needed to give it another chance, but because there were still half a dozen dishes on the menu I couldn’t stop thinking about.
This time, I ordered the eggs en cocotte (£13) served with a side of thick, buttered sourdough toast. It was, without question, the best breakfast plate I’ve ordered in a long time. Full stop.
Surprising and rare for a relatively understated vegetarian dish to steal the show with me. I did, admittedly, scoop the remnants of the roast bone marrow (£10) into the earthy mushroom concoction, making it decidedly less veggie, but this felt like the perfect example of Bank’s aspiration taking shape.
For me, the best dishes on that menu aren’t necessarily the peacocks, but the workhorses — where a few good ingredients are allowed to do their thing. It’s all cooked flawlessly over fire, alongside starters and sides with enough flourish to remind you that you’re somewhere very special.
Matt is notoriously difficult to please when it comes to a full English, largely because of his long-running campaign against baked beans. So, it’s no small feat that he called the Bank version (£18) the best he’s ever had.
The smoked garlic and miso sausage, egg and cheese bun (£12) was less successful. Perfectly decent, but like the Billingsgate bap, perhaps trying to do a little too much. Rich on rich on rich, it might’ve looked good on paper, but wasn’t quite what I wanted at 10am, mildly hungover.
The plates, rather than the buns, are where Bank really excels. There’s a confidence to the menu that I love. It occasionally goes a step further than it needs to, but I’d rather eat at a restaurant with a few too many interesting ideas than one with none at all.
The drinks don’t exactly encourage restraint either. The coffees are punchy. The mimosa (£9) was fine. The new-to-the-menu pickle margarita (£12), however, floored me. Salty, sharp and completely unexpected at breakfast time, it even pushed the Bloody Mary off its throne.
The restaurant itself is bright and airy. There’s a soulful playlist tinkering in the background. The atmosphere hasn’t seemed buzzy, perhaps because it’s not a small space, but on both visits, there’s been plenty of empty tables. A couple here and there, occasionally with dogs or babies in tow, someone working on a laptop, a local publican (known for his food) catching up with a friend. At one point, someone the staff clearly knew walked through the door proclaiming they’d simply been unable to walk past after smelling that fire-cooking from outside, which totally resonated.
I will say, it’s not a cheap breakfast. For two people, we’ve spent more than £80 on both visits. You can absolutely bring that down — skip the oysters, don’t order the cocktails, don’t add the side of bone marrow, skip the steaks and stick to one of the more restrained plates. But that feels a little like going to the theatre and leaving before the final act.
I’m not going to endorse that. If you’re going to Bank for breakfast, you’ve got to lean into it. Do all of the above. Don’t treat breakfast as something that has to happen before the weekend starts; make it the reason you’re out in the first place.
Bristol, put down the Pret and get yourself a Saturday morning steak and eggs.
All words and photos by Jodie Fletcher Swift
Bank, 107 Wells Road, BS4 2BS
The Bristol Sauce is an AI free publication — all our work is written and edited by humans.
Find Bristol’s best restaurants on the go with The Bristol Sauce app — available exclusively to paying Saucers.