The Clifton: 'Be prepared for dangerous doses of food envy'

From the outside not much has changed, but inside the Clifton they're cooking on gas. Or flames, more accurately.

The clientele at the Clifton were exactly as you’d expect, but I mean that in the nicest possible way. Two very good friends of mine were sat at the bar.

If anyone ever asks me where to eat in Clifton village, I usually tell them to go elsewhere. The architecturally beautiful middle-class oasis that squats at the top of the hill cradling its precious bridge is every bit as full of money as it is devoid of taste. It’s a tourist sensation spot, a place where problems seem unable to permeate the walls, Bristol’s public school poster boy.

I’m being incendiary, yes, but I don’t have much time for Clifton village. It has its moments; Catley’s, Nutmeg and Bar 44 are all very good, and now the Clifton, which ironically is from Wales.

From outside, you wouldn’t notice much of a difference about the Clifton since its previous iteration. It’s been part of the furniture of Regent Street for a while, and the new owners kept the frontage and even the name the same. But inside, the once tired and slightly sticky pub has pulled itself up by the bootstraps and is now looking quite smart, thank you very much. If I didn’t know better, I would be mistaken for thinking I was in a parallel universe version of the now-gone Pony Bistro on North Street. The style inspiration is much the same.

The Pony North Street (RIP) did not have a meat ageing fridge. One-Nil to the Clifton.

Beyond the bustling bar is a slightly quieter dining section with an open kitchen. If you can hoik yourself up onto one of the absurdly high bar stools, you can watch first hand from the best seat in the house and enjoy banter and recommendations from the chefs. You can also look down on all the other customers. Most entertaining. This is more Paco than Pony, and from here you can feel the heat from the flames. You’ll also feel a dangerous dose of food envy when you see the dishes you didn’t order being prepared. A clever ploy to get you to come back.

The chefs were very good humoured and looked to be very relaxed smashing out seared-somethings in the kitchen while chatting to interested onlookers.

A cleverer ploy would’ve been to make the food exceptional. As it stands, the dishes we ordered came in at hearty and commendable. Good, yes. Exceptional, no. I think my taste buds have been ruined for the week by a matchless guinea fowl at Little French on Thursday that could not be followed. I would happily have my taste buds decimated by that guinea fowl any day of the week.

Back at the Clifton, an ox heart skewer (£4) and bread and butter made in house (£3.5) were enjoyable teasers; the umami of the ox heart tempered lightly with a peppery vinegar. Ox heart should feature on far more menus than it does. This would be a good sample skewer to convince more restaurants to get in line and follow suit.

The ox heart skewer comes from the bar snack section of the menu, which had been explained to us in detail. It is so difficult to understand a menu without a ten minute explanation of the size of each plate. Thank goodness for people explaining menus everywhere you go.

Crispy pig cheek with fennel, chicory and mustard (£11) was a lesson in rendering fat to make the crispest, teeth-tacking pork you’ll ever eat. If all crackling was this good we probably wouldn’t feel the need to eat anything else. Cut through with sharply mustardy chicory, fennel and capers it was a truly commendable creation.

All salads should have this much crispy pig cheek.

Steamed Palourde clams, mussels, leeks and local cider (£11) were 95% tasty and 5% grit. And not the kind of grit that gets you up off the floor when you’ve been kicked down one too many times. This kind of grit is not to be encouraged.

Close but no cigar.

It took some convincing to get my fellow fork-weilder to concede to ordering the cull yaw shepherd’s pie (£28). Said pie had come highly recommended on Fiona Beckett’s Instagram only a day earlier, and it’s not often you see a shepherd’s pie in a restaurant such as the Clifton. There’s good reason it seems - no matter how fancy you make a shepherd’s pie, no matter how good the produce and provenance it’s made up of, at the end of the day it is still a shepherd’s pie. A great dish, and this was a particularly good example of it, but still not a spend-£28-on-a-Saturday-night-in-a-new-restaurant dish. And they didn’t serve it with gravy, which meant I was faced with no choice but to throw it right back across the counter in protest. You can take the girl out of the North…

Prettier than most shepherd’s pies, but ultimately still a shepherd’s pie.

We didn’t stay for dessert. Apparently it’s not appropriate to pie-face a chef in the middle of service. I regretted that later when I found out that the pastry chef at the Clifton has apparently come from Farro. I am a fool.

I mentioned earlier that the Clifton is from Wales. It has two older siblings on the outer reaches of Cardiff, both of which have done rather well for themselves. Both are in the Michelin guide and I think the Clifton will probably follow suit. As I said, it was very good, I just have incredibly high standards (and a constant burning desire to drown everything in gravy).

The Clifton, 16 Regent Street, BS8 4HG

Words and photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour