THE RUNCIBLE SPOON

Expectations are a big part of dining. If I’m going to a pop-up restaurant, I’m expecting a slightly shambolic dinner party with better-than-usual food and a convivial environment from the sheer experience of it. If I’m paying £70+ for three courses I’m expecting something that’s going to blow my head off with tastebombs and waiters who will show me a cheeseboard even though I’ve told that I’m not going to have any cheese (true story). Here at the Runcible Spoon, run by the people behind last year’s Bristol ‘Cloak and Dagger’ pop-up, I’m paying £13 for two courses, I’m not expecting silver service, and the food, well… I’m just hoping for something that tastes good.

Situated in Stokes Croft, Bristol, the scene of the Tesco riots just down the road, this addition to the area has predictably gone down much better with locals. The building is something of a rabbit warren, a cosy welcoming bar area where homemade pickles and cookbooks line the walls, leads down to a cellar dining room dressed like something from Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (‘cheese grater lampshades appear on the wall’), heating provided by a small portable thing of the type you’d find in a student bedsit. The menu, smartly written on a blackboard covering one wall of the dining room, has a limited choice of two options: one carnivorous, one not, and a slightly more expensive multi-course banquet dinner is available on Saturdays. A friendly if fairly inattentive approach from the quirky young Bristolians running the place works fine, especially at these prices. And it seems a simple formula as to how they can charge less; overheads cut with just paper drinks menus, less staff, and with the limited options, I would imagine, a whole lot less food waste.

From the small, well-priced drinks list I plump for a Somerset cider brandy, cloudy apple juice and cinnamon drink which tastes appropriately autumnal and authentic. As does our starter of house-smoked trout and horseradish fishcake, presented simply with a few sprigs of fresh lettuce leaves and a poached egg on top. The smokiness reminds me of fireworks night or Reading festival, though I try and keep my mind away from ‘that’ smell of burning plastic as I eat. It’s delicious, and proof that fishcakes aren’t exclusively the preserve of Brakes pub catering. Before that we were gifted parsnip soup in a chintzy teacup, a little under-seasoned, but pretty delicious once some of the buttered homemade bread was dipped into it.

Pork belly, having become somewhat ubiquitous in Britain’s gastropubs and home kitchens these days, is perhaps now a tougher dish on which to impress. This belly does pretty well, tender with a strip of quality crackling on top, a neat square of creamy dauphinoise  and humongous hunk of braised red cabbage on the side. Artfully unrefined, if not exactly an unexpected combination, on a cold, rainy day in Southwest England, this is a good one. Good cafetiere coffee stirred us from our food-induced slump as we waited for our taxi, with time constraints forcing us to ignore the plum bakewell tart or stewed apples with caramel, blackberries and biscotti for dessert. A place for quality rustic homely eating, with a sensible, no bullshit approach that shows up so many overdressed and much more expensive places, in fact it over delivers. Expect to be impressed.

Price: £37 for 2 with a couple of drinks and stomachs full enough to mean we didn’t do too much dancing at the Jens Lekman show we were headed too.

Stand-outs: Festival fishcakes

Vibe: We were the only customers early on on a Tuesday evening. I’m sure it picks up at weekends. I would have preferred something other than classic FM on the stereo.

Need to know: Cash Only, open Tuesday to Sunday lunch and dinner. Much of the produce comes from The Fat of the Land permaculture project.

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Photo Courtesy of Bristol Culture