Carmen Street Wine, St Paul's: 'The sort of cosy yet stylish spot that feels like hospitality actualised'
Hospitality's front room by Bristol's Jeremy King
In the relatively short space of time that it has been open, I have fallen hard and fast for Carmen Street Wine. It is easily done. I’m pleased that some of its joy has been captured in writing here and I hope this persuades you to visit, so that you may fall in love with it too. It’s the kind of place that makes you feel really happy to be alive and to be out in the company of other humans, which is exactly the kind of establishment we love to write about. Enjoy!
There aren’t many places everybody seems happy to be. Glastonbury and Pride are two that spring to mind. The first half hour of a wedding, before it starts dragging. The raucous Dia de Muertos parade in Oaxaca, Mexico. Closer to home, Carmen Street Wine just off ‘vibrant’ Stokes Croft is another such place.
Last time we came to Carmen Street Wine, admittedly late on a Sunday evening, the kitchen was bare other than some very fine, meaty rock oysters. Five quid Negronis and £4.50 Guinness’ will make people hungry. Standing there drooling, like cartoon Big Bad Wolves, we were graciously permitted to order in some Danny’s burgers to chomp alongside our well-deserved magnum (of wine, not the ice cream, much to Meg’s disappointment).
This time the concise menu was bolstered by a few bonus pickings from the mothership. From a short blackboard offering of three charcuterie and two cheeses, alongside the classic 2026 wine bar signifiers of almonds, olives, padron peppers and tinned fish (smoked sardines currently), it was the truffle salchichon bellota that appealed over the plain version or lomo.
A recommendation of Fiano (£12 a glass), described as the “whitest white”, a phrase more generally heard at Reform conferences, was gratefully and enthusiastically accepted as a suitable accompaniment. The salchichon (£6.50) could equally have been described as the “truffliest truffle”-flavoured: the Torres crisps of charcuterie. I await the invention of fried egg flavour salami with baited breath.
Four thick wedges of irregularly-bubbled focaccia (£4.50) soon made their way over. If I wanted to be querulous — and lord knows I generally do, even if Carmen Street is the sort of place that makes it easy to forget any niggles — I’d have liked more than the one puck of caper-riddled beurre ravigote provided. But you could give me a whole pack of butter and I’d still wonder whether that was quite enough, and maybe it was a deliberate ploy on behalf of our server to ensure we had enough bread left for the forthcoming mariniere sauce. If I was that good at delaying gratification, I probably wouldn’t be divorced. Meg said she wished she’d saved some bread and butter to make herself a chip butty (you can take the food writer out of the north…) to then dip into the sauce. That’s another level again.
Luckily, I had assigned a slice of focaccia to keep aside for my friend at the start of the meal, because I am very kind. When, over an hour in, she still hadn’t finished it, I took it upon myself to reclaim it for dunking it in the creamy shellfish-infused broth at the bottom of a bowl rattling with shiny, plump bivalves (£13 with fries). The fries could have done with both more salt and more time in the fryer, although they remained admirably crisp despite their blondeness.
In quick succession came an off-menu treat presumably ferried in sneakily from Caper: pig’s cheek (£14), slow-cooked to a seductive, softly-sweet nugget, with some of the best, most silken pommes purée you’re likely to come across the side of the Bayeux tapestry. Winter-comfort-food-par excellence, but a snappy celeriac remoulade made sure it coddled rather than anaesthetised.
By this point, the newly-opened Bottleshop, visible through the open doorway to the left of the bar, was full of sixtieth birthday celebrators. After our food, we perused the tall, shiny bottles on offer in there, Naked orange wine in hand. Thank god for the lack of a comma there.
Carmen Street Wine’s main snug was also rammed, punters drifting in and out while we remained perched on our stools like inebriated meerkats. A quick glimpse into the older sibling, the much-celebrated Caper & Cure, on the way home showed it, too, packed to the rafters, diners happily knocking back flinty whites with their turbot heads. I mean they were eating fish, not that they were particularly ugly. It might have been Dry January and we might be in the middle of a cost of living crisis, but the denizens of Stokes Croft and beyond still know where it’s at.
Charismatic owner, Giles, channels Tom Hiddleston’s night manager as he drifts between Carmen Street and Caper & Cure, charming all in his path as he goes. You can get a taste for his character and excellent taste in wine in the article written about him just last week in Restaurant Online. Seemingly on his way to becoming Bristol’s Jeremy King, he has created the sort of cosy yet stylish spot that feels like hospitality actualised and, for that matter, hospitality’s front room. You can pop in for a glass of cremant or a Guinness, or, as we did, stay all evening (although if you are after a proper, sit-down meal, maybe book the OG). We intended the former, but it soon veered towards the latter. For that you can blame one or two impeccable negronis, skirting sweetness but never quite getting there. And maybe a couple of sips of my friend’s Manhattan. As one glass of wine became three, half of Bristol seemed to show their faces, friends were hugged, or waved at across the room, and unfulfilled promises were made. It’s a good job they don’t offer desserts yet, or I might still be there now.
Carmen Street Wine, Beckford Street, BS1 3FD
All words by PXandTarts, photos as labelled
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