Poco Tapas, Jamaica Street: 'For all its undeniable history, seems a little old hat'
The good, the bad and the ugly
You’ve had two PXandTarts reviews in two weeks, you lucky lucky people. Poco Tapas is by no means a new restaurant, but it is an interesting one, and I’ve had a few people say to me recently that they thought it worth revisiting — so I sent PXandTarts off on a quest. As ever, the visit was anonymous and everything was paid for, in full, because that’s how we always do things and always will. If you rate our honesty and integrity — please vote with your feet (read: email address) by becoming a subscriber. Thank you! Meg X
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
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That read was exhausting. I understand that hiding within that jumble of words is a restaurant review.
Haven't been to Poco in years! Hadn't realised it had been taken over by another team. Found it quite hit and miss even back in the day.