Easton Grill House, Stapleton Road: 'undeniably a step above your average kebaby'
A review of Bristol's best chef's favourite restaurant
Ask properly good chefs about their favourite restaurants and you’ll end up with a list of excellent places to eat. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again; by asking those in hospitality where to eat you end up following a trail of golden breadcrumbs - each chef, bartender or barista recommending the next.
It’s a far better way of navigating restaurants than using ShitAdvisor. In fact, someone should make a site where only the staff of good restaurants can recommend where to eat. And if anyone nicks that idea - I’m suing. I have to make my money somehow.
But when you ask chefs where they most regularly eat, the answers are quite different. These are the places that they’ll confess quickly and quietly while looking down at their sauce-stained crocs.
For example, one of Bristol’s most prolific chefs once confessed to me that they are a frequent visitor to Pizza 1989 in Avonmeads car park. A scenic dinner spot if ever there was one.
I couldn’t help but laugh when I once accidentally witnessed a large UberEats McDonalds order being delivered discretely into a very expensive Bristol restaurant kitchen. The team in question will remain anonymous for their own protection.
But Jan Ostle, the chef and co-owner of Bristol’s best restaurant, has gone on record many a time proudly declaring his love for Easton Grill House - a kebab shop that can be found hiding behind a bus stop at the seam between Stapleton Road and Fishponds Road.
These kind of ‘guilty pleasures’ represent a kind of love that can be found in a worrying large number of relationships. The kind of love that lubricates political alliances. It’s a love of convenience. Convenience and simplicity. After all, the last thing any chef craves following a day of tweezing herbs, splitting sauces, sous-viding and sautéeing is a fancy dinner, especially one they’ve had to cook themselves. But a slab of chargrilled unidentified meat wrapped in a naan? Perfect.
If it is good enough for Jan, it is more than good enough for me.
This actually isn’t the first time I’ve visited Easton Grill House; their kebabs were almost as essential to my nearby house renovation as the caulk holding everything together. But this is the first time I’ve visited without leaving a trail of plaster, dust and tears and thus the first time I’ve had the chance to sit at one of the handful of tables.
It turns out that when you eat in at EGH, you get a complimentary bowl of heady mustard yellow lentil soup - a very happy marriage of chicken stock, butter and earthy lentils. If I could make soup like that, I wouldn’t bother cooking anything else. It’s a good job I didn’t know about this during my nearby renovations, otherwise I would be writing this from a building site.
A butterflied whole grilled sea bass (£19.99) rewards fingers pulling flakes from bone with sharp lemon, charred skin and salt. Simple and delicious, if a little pricey. Similar is a blistered, chewy naan (which turns up at the table whether you’ve requested one or not).
The lamb kofta (£7.99) - Jan’s favourite - is dense and studded with onion. Its neighbour, grilled chicken thigh shish (£7.99), is slightly overcooked and sadly the offal offering of lamb liver is even more so. The kebabs have let the side down slightly, leading us to the conclusion that Zhyan just over the road is still the reigning champion of nearby cheap eats.
And if you’re willing to abandon convenience and hot-foot it down the M32 into town - Easton Grill House is no match for the similar fare at Matina, perhaps largely due to the superior salads and sauces available at St Nick’s.
I hate the term guilty pleasure. For me it’s up there with Live Laugh Love and Hidden Gem. You should never feel guilty about enjoying something; it is our image-obsessed, label-loving society that mind-muddled us into thinking so (unless you enjoy murder, or referring to restaurants as hidden gems, in which case the term is probably apt). A car park pizza, a kebab shop kofta and a maccies drive through all have their moments, and sometimes the best food in all the world is the quick, tasty, salty bite to eat that is already in your hands.
Easton Grill House is undeniably a step above your average kebaby, and that golden soup alone is worth going in for. But I’d implore Jan to check out some other Stapleton Road highlights, like Zhyan and Desi Dera on his next hungry convenience quest.
All words and photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour
Easton Grill House, 429 Stapleton Road, BS5 6NA
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